


Herb's Timestamps

by McSpot



Series: Herb's Electronics [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McSpot/pseuds/McSpot
Summary: A compilation of fic requests and timestamps in the Herb's Electronics universe.Also featuring the fine proprietors of SJS Electrical, a store that actually repairs electronics.





	1. Carey/PK: Meeting the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the anonymous prompt: Does Carey ever take PK to meet his family? Like damn PK has his own relationship with them since they were his only hope that Carey would come home and I assume since they talked regularly they feel like they know him already?
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/5/18.

They come to Nashville for Christmas. They don’t even have to get hotel rooms, because Carey moves in with PK pretty much immediately because now that they’re together again it seems ridiculous to even consider sleeping in separate homes. PK’s house - their house, now, has more than enough room for Carey’s relatives to visit.

“It’s probably big enough for both of our families to visit at the same time,” PK says with a shrug, not even bothering to look bashful when Carey asks him why he bought such a big house anyway. “Besides, maybe one day we’ll have something to fill in those rooms.”

Carey has to look away when he says that, because the way that PK is looking at him is unbearably soft. PK pulls him in with an arm around his shoulders and kisses his cheek, but doesn’t say anything, like he understands.

Even though Carey knew his parents had been talking to PK for two years now, it was a completely new thing to see them hugging him like a long lost relative.

He pretends he doesn’t hear his mother tearfully saying, “Thank you for bringing him back to us.”

At first he thinks about protesting - after all, he visited his parents before he spoke to PK again - but he stops himself.

After all, it was technically PK coming to town that made Carey take a look at how he really wanted to live his life. It was PK who made him take chances again.

And it was PK who brought him home again.

His sister nudges him with her elbow; he doesn’t have to look to know that she’s smirking.

“You picked a good one,” she says quietly, watching their parents compliment PK on his house, his team, his taste in men.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”


	2. Carey/PK: Airports and Dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A combination of two anonymous prompts: "Does PK ever wake up to Carey bringing him a perfect cup of coffee in bed? Does Carey ever pick PK up from the airport after a long roadie with hot cocoa in the cupholder and the last of the day's smiling whale cookies wrapped in a napkin? Does Carey ever come down to breakfast and realize that after all these years apart PK still knows exactly how Carey takes his eggs?" and "Would you ever write a time stamp where SCarey Price and his beautiful boyfriend get the dogs to fill up their yard in the home pk fucking designed with love? God I just love that fic"
> 
> Originally posted in two parts on Tumblr on 5/24/18 and 8/2/18.

Sometimes Carey felt like he’d accidentally stumbled somewhere along the way, tripped out of the path that fate had set for him and through some liminal space that had spat him out here, leaning against his car in a dark, cold parking lot, yawning around a cup of hot chocolate and staring at the planes coming in, trying to spot the right one.

A step back and he would have been on that plane, or one just like it in Montreal, huddled up front with the rest of the staff, pretending he couldn’t feel the eyes burning into the back of his neck the whole trip.

A bit to the left and Carey would have been in bed right now, staring at the play of shadows across the ceiling of his small apartment, wondering if the man he loved was on one of those planes right now and dreaming of everything he’d left behind.

A hop down and Carey would have been back in Anahim Lake – or maybe he never would have left, and it would never cross his mind to think about late night flights and the hockey players that took them.

But somehow, against all odds, Carey had miraculously found himself here in the parking lot of the Nashville International Airport on a cold winter night, the type where your bones froze even if water wouldn’t. He tucked his chin into his jacket and pulled his toque further down around his ears, keeping his eyes set on the exit the Predators always used, the one that led to where their bus was parked.

He knew he could wait inside the building where it was warm; he didn’t.

He knew he could let PK take the bus to the arena with the rest of the team and drive himself home from there; he didn’t.

Part of being in that liminal space meant that Carey was very aware of the lives that they had lived while they were apart, and how PK had continued to live a life that had ceased to exist for Carey years ago. It was jarring at times, to see the ways that they had to relearn how to fit their lives together.

The first time that Carey had told PK he would pick him up from the airport after a road trip, PK had laughed like it was some fantastic joke. Carey knew why, because he used to live PK’s life too: only the clingiest of girlfriends or the most concerned of wives insisted on picking up their hockey player directly at the airport.

But Carey didn’t live the same life as PK anymore, and in his new life he sometimes woke up panting and alone, and the only thing that would calm him down when he realized that the other side of the bed had never been slept in was staring at the crown moulding until he felt like he could breathe again.

Carey’s apartment didn’t have crown moulding, but his house with PK did. If he saw the crown moulding, he knew it wasn’t a dream.

If he could write down on his calendar that he had to stay up late so he could pick PK up from the airport, he knew it wasn’t a dream.

The amazing thing about PK was that he took everything in stride, whether it was getting traded from his childhood team or finding out that his boyfriend had grown a few new quirks in the two years they’d been apart.

“Quirks” was putting it generously, but then, there was no other way that PK would ever be.

And so Carey stood in the parking lot, sipping hot chocolate he could barely taste, and he watched the door.

The Predators spilled out the doors en masse in the way that hockey teams always did, jostling bags and bumping against each other companionably even exhausted in the middle of the night and coming off a loss. The staff always trailed out some ways after them, pushing carts of luggage or heads ducked together over an iPad, and if Carey squinted and tilted his head to the side he could imagine how his life could have led him to that place too.

He pressed his back against his car, just enough to feel the cold start to seep in through his jacket, and decided that he’d prefer what he had now, any day.

PK was easy to pick out of the crowd, both because he was already heading in Carey’s direction as he said his goodbyes to his team and because Carey could always pick out PK in a crowd. By the time he got close enough to see in the dim glow of the street lamps, he was already smiling, his teeth glinting white in the darkness.

Once upon a time, Carey would have teased him for that, but nowadays he kept his mouth shut because that smile always left him a little too breathless to respond.

He knew he was smiling back helplessly, but the nice thing about his new life was that nobody cared.

The nicer thing was being able to kiss that smile off of PK’s lips, right there in the parking lot, and know that it was no threat to anything but Carey’s pulse.

“The Price Is Right!” PK crowed quietly into the hushed space between them as they parted. He had one gloved hand still holding his bag, but the other was on Carey’s neck, the leather cool and smooth, but warmer than the air around them.

Carey couldn’t think of a good way to say _hi_ and _hello_ and _I missed you even though we talked all the time and you were only gone a few days_ , and so he rolled his eyes and said, “Get in the car.”

PK ran his hand down Carey’s shoulder and arm until he could squeeze his hand. Carey was pretty sure he heard every word all the same.

Neither of them questioned that Carey would throw PK’s bags into the backseat, because he always insisted on doing so himself. It gave him a chance to settle his thoughts as he walked around the back of the car, sliding into the driver’s seat.

PK was already rummaging in the cup holder, checking out what Carey had brought him this time. There was another insulated mug of hot chocolate, along with a whale cookie whose smile was just a little too off-kilter to sell to customers.

It made PK smile, though, and that was enough to make Carey bite back a thousand chiding remarks about following diet plans this deep into the season.

Part of leaving behind his old life as an athletic trainer for his new life as a barista at a bakery meant adopting a much more laissez-faire attitude towards the nutrition of professional athletes, even the ones near and dear to him.

This was a difference that PK seemed intent to exploit early and often. Carey wouldn’t have him any other way.

The smell of chocolate permeated the air as PK pried the entire lid off of his mug, because simply taking a sip of his drink would be too easy. “Mm, hot chocolate tonight? Babe, did you miss me that much?”

It was an old joke, but the thing about missing two years of your boyfriend’s life was that you didn’t get to hear old jokes for so long that they took on a new, more poignant meaning. Carey didn’t even groan or roll his eyes when PK finished with the punch line, “You know I’ve got all the hot chocolate you need right here.”

Old Carey would have punched PK in the thigh and made a suggestion that maybe PK shouldn’t be so confident, and on one of Carey’s better days he probably still would.

But it was late, and he was tired, and even retreading old joking arguments sounded exhausting right about now, and so Carey settled for lacing his fingers with PK’s over the gearshift just once, just briefly, before he gently nudged his hand away so that he could put the car in drive.

He still said, “Eat your cookie, Subban,” and PK still smiled, because he’d never been intimidated by Carey a day in his life.

The drive towards home was quiet. Carey didn’t put the radio on, but it didn’t feel like they needed it. In the course of relearning each other, they had both been excited to find that they could still spend hours together without needing any words at all.

They went about their evening routines in the same way, moving around each other seamlessly in the few lights they deigned to turn on in their darkened house. It wasn’t until they were settling into bed and Carey leaned over to turn off the lamp besides his head that one of them spoke.

“You ready for tomorrow, babe?” PK was already on his side with a hand on Carey’s hip, waiting for Carey to settle in so he could spoon up behind him. “We got a big day ahead of us.”

He pressed a kiss to Carey’s collarbone, just because he could; Carey’s eyes flicked up to the crown moulding anyway, just to be safe.

It was still there, just like it always was these days.

He smiled, just enough to show he meant it.

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

He reached over and turned off the light.

Eyes always took a few minutes to adjust to the darkness, and that meant that Carey couldn’t see the crown moulding for a while. But he was able to close his eyes and rest peacefully without it, because he didn’t need a visual reminder of which life he’d managed to stumble his way into when he had PK’s arms around him, his nose buried between his shoulder blades, huffing out warm, even breaths over his skin.

Whatever life that was, he knew it had to be a good one.

~~~

Copper was, objectively, not the most attractive dog. His red coat that had given him his name had long since started to turn white, especially around his face. There was a notch missing from one of his dangling ears where the shelter workers thought another dog had bitten him. Sometimes when he stood up he had to take a minute to reorient himself before he could get moving, and even then he was sometimes a little stiff.

He was meticulously trained, the type of alert obedience that the employees said meant he was almost assuredly a hunting hound who had outlived his usefulness.

“We see them all the time,” one employee at the shelter had said, shaking her head in disgust. “Most hounds you see abandoned or dumped at shelters are failed hunting dogs who were gun-shy or hunting dogs who slowed down too much to do their job. Copper’s a good boy. He’s just old.”

Copper was a good boy. He was also predicted to be pushing nine or ten, fairly geriatric for a redbone coonhound. Nobody was interested in taking home a dog with mobility issues – degenerative arthritis couldn’t be solved with a cute doggy wheelchair, which meant he wasn’t fashionably quirky enough for people to deal with the hassle of helping him get around – and they certainly weren’t excited to adopt a dog who was clearly in his twilight years.

Carey took one look into his eyes, rheumy and drooping and focused on him with a startling clarity, and announced that he’d found the dog he wanted to adopt.

PK, to his credit, had only questioned him once.

“Babe, are you sure? I know you said you were thinking about a dog we could take running or camping…”

Carey shook his head. “No. We’re getting him.”

There were a list of reasons why, flying around his head too quickly for Carey to verbalize, and certainly not things he’d want to say in public: that nobody else wanted Copper, that Copper might live out his life in this shelter if they didn’t step up, that Copper had dedicated his life to helping his owner only to be abandoned when he’d outlived his purpose.

That Carey felt a kinship to him that he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel ready to unpack.

PK had knelt down in front of the pen next to Carey and wiggled his fingers through the chain-link fence. Copper dragged himself forward a few inches without bothering to stand up from his bed, just far enough that he could sniff at PK’s hand. After a moment he licked PK’s fingers, just once, and settled his head back down on his paws.

Carey hadn’t needed to look at PK to know he was smiling.

“He’s a good boy,” PK said. “Yeah, okay. Let’s see what we have to do to take you home with us, buddy.”

Copper’s tail had thumped against his bed, just once. When Carey looked into his eyes, he liked to think that Copper approved.

That had been two weeks ago. The application process had required a home visit and an interview; Carey had been gratified to find that the shelter wasn’t just willing to hand them a dog because PK was a rich and famous NHL player, but actually wanted to make sure that someone would be home to take care of Copper while PK was away. They’d passed with flying colors, and had decided to wait to pick up Copper until after PK had returned from his next road trip.

Carey had spent the intervening time spending far too long researching orthopedic pet beds and specialty foods for senior dogs and shopping around for a vet so they could continue Copper’s arthritis medications.

It was the first time in a long time that he’d had something to dedicate himself to so whole-heartedly that had nothing to do with making coffee or navigating his strange insecurities about his relationship with PK. Carey was more than happy to welcome the opportunity.

And now they were ready to bring Copper home.

James had been quick to give Carey the day off in the name of “dog paternity leave.” He hadn’t even met Copper yet and he’d already offered for Carey to bring Copper with him to work; when Paul had informed him that this would be a severe health code violation, James had begun loudly discussing the practicalities of installing an elevator in the building so that Copper could stay in the upper apartments during the day without having to take the stairs.

Ben had handed Carey a bag of bone-shaped baked goods.

“I found the recipe online,” he’d said with a small smile, “They say it’s good for joint health.”

“So have you been giving them to Max then?”

Ben snorted. “I do that and he’s liable to jump over a car, his joints are way too healthy as it is.”

The bag of treats was sitting on the counter at home. They didn’t know if Copper was prone to getting carsick, but the anxiety of change might be enough to make anyone a little queasy, so they’d decided to hold off on feeding him anything until he got home.

Copper was already standing when the shelter employee led them to his pen. He wagged his tail when he saw them, just once, but Carey liked to think he knew what was going on.

“Only one wag, old man?” He knelt down in front of Copper as soon as the gate was open and rubbed his hands over Copper’s cheeks, moving to scratch behind his ears. “Give me time, we’ll get more out of you than that.”

Copper huffed loudly and licked his chops; Carey laughed.

“Yeah, okay, I get it. Let’s get out of here, bud.”

Copper was following him out of the pen before the worker could clip a leash onto his collar.

PK, holding the leash and collar Carey had picked out, laughed and shrugged. “I don’t think we’re even gonna need these, babe. Looks like he’s already planning to follow you anywhere.”

There was a symmetry to that, something significantly metaphorical enough that Carey knew he’d rather ignore it. Instead, smiled down at Copper, and Copper stared up at him, eyes dark and watery and trusting.

“You ready to go home, buddy?”

He patted his thigh and started slowly walking forward.

Copper made a low grumble and stiffly followed after.

When Carey looked back, his tail was wagging.

Carey rubbed a hand over his warm, smooth ears. PK grabbed his other hand and squeezed it, warm and sure.

“Yeah,” he whispered, “Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hot chocolate" refers to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8JceSf9DXc&feature=youtu.be&t=156).


	3. Carey/PK: More Dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flufflybunnypants prompted: I wish you would write a fic where SCarey Price and PK just keep adopting dogs and giving them a home and all their love to the point where PK’s teammates are just like “where do you guys even sleep? Your bed is dogs. Your couch is dogs. I’m pretty sure your welcome mat has a dog napping on it”
> 
> 8/15/18

“First of all,” PK said, “That’s not a welcome mat, that’s his bed. Once we figured out he liked to lay there we figured he’d be more comfortable with his bed there instead. We have enough doors, we didn’t need to use the front door anyway.”

He said this with an entirely straight face, which was impressive because no less than two fluffy little black dogs were currently rolling around in his lap, crawling over each other to lick at his chin.

A chocolate lab came barreling down the hallway, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he bounced around Calle’s feet, trying to get him to play. A terrier came chasing after him, barking the whole way.

Roman leaned back on his heels, but he couldn’t lean too far because he was going to trip over the black and white pit bull winding around the back of his legs to butt her head up under his hand.

“Don’t you guys think this is a little…excessive?”

Carey came in the room then, holding that little grey dog with the gremlin teeth in his arms like a baby so he could rub her stomach. Copper plodded faithfully along at his heels.

“This is fine,” Carey said. His face was flat in that very Carey-way that made all of the guys want to shiver and take a step back.

The grey dog wrapped her little paws around Carey’s hand then, pinning it to her chest while she licked his fingertips. He cracked a smile and wiggled his fingers, making her squirm happily in his arms.

Well. There was something to be said for making SCarey Price happy.


	4. SJS Electrical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short story about a little shop in Nashville called SJS Electrical, which actually repairs electronics.
> 
> 10/1/18

Joe Thornton was not old.

Sure, he was edging dangerously close to forty, and he was older than all of his coworkers, but that didn’t make him _old_.

Joe was just…experienced. He’d been around a while. He had a bit of history to him.

That was what he loved about old electronics. There were stories to be told by a Walkman that had survived for over thirty years clipped to the belts of faithful joggers, by a radio that had broadcast voices from World War II. Joe loved nothing more than to be elbows-deep in the guts of a cathode ray television, especially the kind with a large wooden console, because those were a piece of furniture, a gathering place where families came together and made memories.

In a way, Joe’s job was to keep those memories alive, even for just a little longer. He was honored to be a part of their history.

“That sounds like something an old man would say,” Timo hummed, tapping a few buttons on his tablet before peering over at the screen of the smartphone connected to it.

Joe scoffed. “Of course you have no respect for history, how could you when the products you repair were made to fall apart within three years?”

He patted the top of the CRT television that had just been dropped off that morning. “You see this? CRTs were made to last. Nobody was thinking about something like _planned obsolescence_ when they built this baby.”

Joe had been repairing CB radios in his parents’ garage before Timo had even been born, so he didn’t really feel like Timo had the right to give him such a scathing look.

Fuck, maybe he was getting old.

“Do you see _this_?” Timo pointed at the phone he was working on. “This is an iPhone 4, and I just got it to turn on again. The guys at Apple won’t even touch these anymore. I am performing _miracles_ over here.”

“That’s proving my point! Back in the day electronics were built to survive for decades, not for their own creators to write them off as useless less than five years after they came out! Do you want to know a brand that lasts?”

Timo groaned and slumped over his tablet. “I swear to God if you say Zenith-”

“ _Zenith_ , now _that_ is a good brand. They revolutionized the modern remote control! A Zenith tv will last you a lifetime with proper care-”

Pavs came out of the back office with a pinched look on his face.

“Jesus Christ, are you guys arguing about planned obsolescence again?”

Joe shook his head. “I’m just saying, it’s a damn shame that nobody makes things like they used to.”

“Nobody wants a Zenith tv anymore!” Timo called from his desk.

Joe’s eye twitched. 

Pavs patted him firmly on the chest. “Give it a rest, man, we know that’s not true, otherwise we wouldn’t have any other business.”

“There’s no respect for history anymore,” Joe grumbled, shaking his head. “Did you know that the other day he said he didn’t know what RCA was?”

Pavs winced, and they both sighed together. RCA always got them a little emotional. That was why they’d always gotten along so well.

You could tell a lot about a man by the brands he preferred.

Jonesy, for example, was a Microsoft guy. Timo had sold his soul to Apple. 

Both, coincidentally, were terrified by CRT desktop computers of either brand, as they were by just about anything that didn’t have an LCD display. They had both been sniped from the Geek Squad at Best Buy, and Joe had to admit that they were a godsend with the ever-increasing flow of customers looking to have their laptop computers and smart devices repaired. Less and less people had classic electronics anymore, and products from the digital age were completely different from the televisions and radios on which Joe had cut his teeth as a kid.

But the classics still had their place, he reminded himself. That was how SJS Electrical had stayed in business for so many years. There was nobody else local who would even look at anything with a CRT, not since Herb Martin had passed away a few years ago. Joe and Pavs may have occupied a niche market, but there was something to be said for being the only place that people could turn to for repairs.

Well. If they bothered to keep getting their old electronics repaired, that was.

He had to admit that the income from Timo and Jonesy’s customers was much-appreciated if they wanted to keep SJS afloat going forward, but Joe was still a stickler for the classics, even if that made him old.

The bell rang above the door as a woman came in. She smiled at Joe and Pavs and pushed her brown hair behind her ear.

“Hi, I’m sorry to interrupt, but is this Simply Jump South?”

A few months ago, Joe would have told her she had the wrong place because he had no clue what she was talking about. But a few months ago, he hadn’t been getting this a few times a day.

“Yes, this is SJS Electrical,” he said with his best customer smile, trying not to put too hard of an emphasis on the initials. “How can we help you?”

The woman looked relieved. “My grandmother gave me this old Victrola-”

As if summoned by a higher power, Burnsie’s head popped out of the office. “Did you say Victrola?”

If his shaggy beard and startling lack of teeth bothered the woman, it was only for a moment, because soon she was showing Burnsie outside to the Victrola in the back of her car, talking animatedly the entire time. Joe could see them through the window, Burnsie nodding along while rubbing his hands together.

They all had their brands, and nothing got Burnsie more excited than a real vintage Victrola.

“That’s the second one today,” Pavs said, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

Joe frowned. “Second Victrola?”

He hadn’t seen another one sitting around the shop today.

“Nah, the SJS thing. This morning’s was Somewhere Jesus Sings, and let me tell you, I was a little creeped out by that one.”

“I liked Sticky Jam Snakes,” Timo said. He unplugged the phone from his tablet and gave it a satisfied look.

“Soylent Jello Snark,” Pavs added.

“Seething Jericho Steak-umms,” Jonesy said as he came through the front door carrying take-out bags. They played this game often enough that you didn’t have to hear the beginning of the conversation to know what was going on.

Some time a few months ago, customers had started coming in with the most ridiculous ideas about the store’s name. Joe had always thought that SJS Electrical was a good name for the store, clean-cut, professional. It was the kind of name you could trust.

But suddenly, all of these customers thought that the store’s initials stood for insane things like Smiling Jiggly Seals and Startled Juice Scores. Joe had thought they were bullshitting at first, until he had a fastidiously-dressed eighty year old man ask him if “Scripted Juggernaut S’mores Electrical” could repair his VCR for him so that he could record Wheel of Fortune that night.

These were legitimate, paying customers who all seemed to be under the impression that the store’s initials stood for all manner of obscure, outlandish things, and they never said the same name twice. It had been going on for so long with such regularity that Jonesy had actually looked up if there was some sort of social media campaign to prank them.

(If there was, they had yet to locate it.)

When they asked customers where they got the name from, they said they were directed over from the other electronics repair store. But the only other electronics repair store locally was Best Buy, and Best Buy would absolutely never send clients to SJS after both Jonesy and Timo jumped ship, even though the Geek Squad wouldn’t touch half of the electronics that SJS repaired. They would much rather convince the customer to replace their product than repair it.

So they still had no clue where these customers were getting these ideas from, and at this point Joe had firmly resigned himself to being asked if he worked for “Snowy Jerky Snacks” at least once a day.

Burnsie and the customer came back inside, this time carrying the Victrola, which Burnsie was treating like gold. He’d have fun with that one.

“Hey ma’am?” Joe asked, just as Burnsie was guiding the customer to the front desk to talk over prices. “Can I just ask where you heard of our company?”

“Oh!” she said with a surprised smile. “That other electronics repair shop recommended you guys.”

Joe nodded, and tried to keep his eye from twitching again.

One of these days, he was going to get to the bottom of this.

“Hey Joe,” Timo called out, “I forgot, Marc said to ask you what a cassette is?”

_One of these days._


	5. SJS Electrical: Espresso

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during "Another Drive All Night."
> 
> 10/1/18

SJS Electrical didn’t repair a whole lot of appliances. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t as a matter of policy, but rather, it wasn’t suited to their specific skills and services. Refrigerators and gas appliances required some understanding of plumbing, which was really not their forte. Marc was usually able to puzzle his way through old-school countertop appliances, because in the end they were really just different configurations of motors, but he still got leery about microwaves.

They all pretty much drew the line at modern coffee makers, because no matter how expensive the machine was originally, by the time the machine had broken down but was old enough to have surpassed its factory warranty, it was usually cheaper to buy a new machine than to go through the effort of picking apart the old one and trying to repair it. For as much as Joe railed against planned obsolescence, even he would admit that it just wasn’t economically viable to pay a hundred dollars in parts and labor to repair a two year old Keurig when you could just buy a new one for fifty dollars more.

Joe was also incredibly biased against modern coffee makers and Keurigs in general, but that was neither here nor there.

This was all to say, Joe didn’t have a whole lot of confidence when a new customer came into the shop hugging a bulky and concerningly expensive-looking espresso machine to his chest. His eyes lit on Joe and an expression of overwhelming relief flooded his face, which was quite honestly a little more pressure than Joe appreciated.

“Hi!” the customer said a little too loudly for the small, arguably-claustrophobic feel of the shop. He shuffled the espresso machine around in his arms like he was going to try to offer Joe his hand before he thought better of it. “You guys do repairs, right?”

He didn’t wait for Joe to answer before he was saying, “That’s awesome, man, because I really need help. My espresso maker has been broken for like, months, and I haven’t really cared because I don’t really use it? I mean, if I want to get an espresso I’ll just go buy one on the way to work, and that’s if I’m even at home anyway, you know?”

This was one of those moments that Joe had become somewhat immune to after years of working with customers, and so he knew well enough to just keep his brittle customer service smile on his face and wait it out, because nine times out of ten the customer would keep talking without Joe needing to give any input at all.

The man shook his head. “No, you don’t care about that, of course not. Anyways, the point is, my espresso maker is broken, and I wouldn’t care, except my parents got it for me and _they’re_ going to care if they come to visit me next week and it’s not functional, because I know they paid a lot of money for it, and it’s just _barely_ out of warranty so I can’t go back to the manufacturer, and trust me, I tried, because technically when it broke it was under warranty but I took too long to call it in so now they won’t cover it and-”

He cut himself off with a huge gasp, both looking and sounding like a beached fish. Joe was just glad they didn’t have to offer him a paper bag to breathe in to.

“What I’m trying to say is, it’s broken, and I really need it fixed so that my parents don’t feel bad that their gift broke, or so that they don’t think that I couldn’t like, take care of the nice things they give me, or whatever. And it’s some weird Italian brand and nobody around here will even look at it and it’s not easy to get a replacement for it either, but those guys at the other place said that Suddenly Just Salad might fix it – that’s a really weird name for an electronics repair shop, you know, but I guess the other place has a weird name too – _anyways_ , do you think you could please, please fix it for me?”

It was more than a lot to take in, and the kid didn’t help matters by giving them all one of the most pathetic expressions Joe had ever seen on an adult male.

Joe shot a glance at Marc, who was wearing an increasingly sour expression as he eyed the machine at a distance. But when he met Joe’s eyes, he huffed, and then shrugged.

“Maybe,” Marc grumbled, taking a reluctant step closer but still treating the machine like it was an active mine. “It’ll probably be expensive, and I can’t guarantee anything because I’ve never even seen one of these before, but we can try.”

Joe felt that the customer should have had a little more shame about the excited noise he let out, and he looked like he would have tried to hug Marc if he wasn’t holding an espresso maker. That was probably for the best, because Marc preferred to save most of his hugs for excitable creatures of the four-legged variety.

“Thank you!” the customer said, painfully sincere and smiling like it had to hurt. “Thank you so much. Whatever you can do would help, money is not an issue.”

Given the way he was dressed, polo tucked into his khakis like he’d just come back from a round of golf and wearing a watch that Joe suspected was worth more than Burnsie’s entire Victrola collection, Joe had no doubt that he was telling the truth.

Marc made one of his non-committal noises and plucked the machine from his arms, the customer staring after him the whole way like a concerned parent.

Well. Apparently not too concerned, if he’d waited this long before getting it repaired.

“If you’ll come with me, sir, we can talk about paperwork and prices,” Joe said, gesturing the customer over to the front counter. But before he could even get to the actual professional part of his job, he couldn’t stop himself from bringing it up.

“Can I just ask where it is that you got our name?”

The customer gave him a flustered smile, still too thrilled by Marc agreeing to look at his espresso maker to really register the question properly.

“Oh, that other place a few blocks over,” he gestured vaguely. “It’s really odd there, I’m not totally sure what it is that they do actually sell, but they said that you guys might be able to help me.”

Joe hummed and threw a look at Marc, trying to guess from the furrow of his brow and the lines in his forehead just about how much work this was going to be so he could make up a price for it.

“So it’s a weird place, huh?” He was trying to sound casual about it, because there was no way that he was going to admit that he just wanted someone to tell him out loud where the hell this other place was that kept intentionally screwing around with their customers and, by proxy, them.

The customer laughed and shook his head. “Man, you have no idea.”

He leaned in closer across the desk, and Joe, who was a rampant gossip at heart, couldn’t help leaning in as well.

“Would you believe,” the customer said in a hushed voice, “I’ve never been to the place before, never even heard of it, and I walk in the door…they have a picture of my dog taped to their wall!”


	6. James/Rich: Aluminum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Ten years is your tin/aluminium anniversary (if you want to roll with a baking themed tin prompt I wouldn’t say no) Congrats! It’s one heck of a milestone and we’re all glad we can just call things gay now.
> 
> Posted on 11/18/18, my 10 year fanfic anniversary.

James knew not to put aluminum foil in the microwave. James was _smart_. He might not have known how to brew coffee without getting actual grounds in it, or how to make a mocha that was more coffee than syrup (they bought it for the syrup anyways, let’s not kid ourselves), and he had once thought that the little tea bags were individually-wrapped portion sizes and were meant to be ripped open and dumped right into hot water (it worked for instant coffee!), but he had never, ever tried to put aluminum in the microwave, because he wasn’t a dumbass.

His boyfriend was, apparently, a dumbass. Not that this was a surprise, of course, because James had been dating him for quite some time now and so he was well-acquainted with the idiot, but these were still new and impressive levels of dumbassery.

“Dumbassery isn’t a word,” Rich said, hovering over his shoulder trying to peer into the microwave. James took great pleasure in using his extra four inches of height to block Rich’s view.

“Well you’ve officially made it one, Dick,” he grumbled.

It had to be the bakery’s microwave, too. Not that James wanted a fire hazard or the accompanying smoke damage in his own apartment, mind you – he was honest enough to admit that he was enough of a fire hazard on his own – but it would have been easier to deal with if it was contained to his own apartment. Instead, he’d just had to do it in the microwave in the bakery’s kitchen, meaning the whole area was now filled with acrid black smoke and the smell of burning plastic.

“I can’t believe you destroyed my microwave for fucking _McDonald’s_.”

“I told him it wasn’t healthy,” Carey said, but James didn’t really feel like listening to Carey because Carey was also eating a quarter pounder as he spoke.

“Why are you guys even eating McDonald’s? Dick’s always whining about me being the one who eats unhealthy. You’re the athletic trainer, aren’t you supposed to keep him from eating this sort of thing?”

Carey shrugged, utterly unbothered as he was with most things that thoroughly bothered James.

“I’m not _his_ athletic trainer. Besides, if he wants to buy us all lunch, who am I to stop him?”

“And you let him reheat it in foil? In _my microwave_?”

Carey put up his hands now, which included the burger. “Hey, I was out front, I didn’t know what he was doing.”

Paul came back around from pinning the exits open, flipping on all of the industrial exhaust fans over the stovetops as he went, making the whole kitchen significantly louder.

“I called the fire department, so they know not to come,” he called over the fans. “But it’s going to be a while before the smoke clears out.”

He stared disdainfully at the microwave, dripping flame retardant foam onto the counter it was mounted over. The cabinets around it were probably salvageable, but James was honestly a little afraid to check. They definitely looked scorched.

“Look, I’ll pay for whatever damage there is,” Rich said. “It’s not a huge deal.”

James stared at him.

“You set my business on fire, Dick. What kind of metaphor do you think that makes of our relationship?”

“It’s not a metaphor when it’s true,” Carey muttered into his sandwich.

Rich rolled his eyes. “It was just a little fire-”

“Why wouldn’t you turn it off after you saw the first sparks? Why would you let it keep going?”

Now Rich finally looked a little embarrassed. “It’s McDonald’s, I thought maybe that’s what the chemicals in it were supposed to do.”

“Oh my God,” Paul said, face stunned. “Oh my God, you actually are made for each other.”

Well that was really fucking rude. James wasn’t _that_ dumb. “Oh no, Paulie, don’t you lump me in with this.”

“You’re the one dating that.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I want to be associated with Mr. Sets-My-Boyfriend’s-Business-on-Fire-with-McDonald’s here.”

“I said I’d pay for it! Besides, if you can put foil in the oven, who would think it couldn’t go in a microwave?”

“ _Everyone!”_ James and Paul shouted.

“You put your wrapped McDonald’s sandwich in the oven?” Carey frowned.

“Oh come on, I don’t think that _everyone_ would know that.”

Kuzya chose that moment to make his entrance, squinting and coughing at the cloud of smoke that rushed his way when he opened the door from the storefront. “This why nobody at register?”

He squinted more, finally noticing the source of the smoke. “Who put metal in microwave?”

_“See?! Do you fucking see, Dick?!”_

Rich did pay for the repairs, but the true retribution came when PK found out about it, because then the whole team knew within minutes. And a hockey team with something to mock was a better punishment than anything James could dream up.

He still banned Rich from touching his microwave again. It was the principle of the thing.


	7. Kuzya: "Call me Kuzya"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: i've always been really curious about kuzy's story, so if you have any snippet about him i'd love to hear?? thanks :)
> 
> This may or may not be absorbed into Kuzya's own story whenever I get around to writing that.
> 
> 11/20/18

The “Previous Employment” section of Zhenya’s application had been blank. In fact, most of the questions on his application were blank, or only half-answered, and he was fully aware that the resume he submitted was entirely in Russian and was therefore completely unintelligible to a painfully Anglo Canadian.

This was all intentional, of course. There was always a method to Zhenya’s madness, and in this particular instance his method was to have an application that was so indecipherable that they would have to call him in for an interview to learn anything about him. Then, once he was there in person, he would wow them with his charisma and charm and the practical portion of the interview – the part where he proved that he could actually make coffee – and they would be so overwhelmed by his smile and winning personality that they would absolutely have to hire him.

Assuming that they didn’t just dump his application package directly in the garbage because they couldn’t make heads or tails of it and didn’t want to bother trying when they could just move on to another applicant.

That had been the biggest hole in his plan, a glaring yellow post-it note with a large question mark drawn on it pinned into the middle of his bulletin board that detailed out his plan of attack.

It was a gamble, maybe, but one he was willing to take.

Zhenya really needed that job.

Or, well, a job. He would like to be employed. Ostensibly so that he would have something to fall back on if and when his parents cut him off, but that was unlikely to happen any time soon as long as he kept his head down and went to school.

He’d really just prefer to be employed at this particular place, if he could, please and thank you. (He’d written that in English across the bottom of his resume, because it was the only thing that it was actually important for the owners to understand.)

There was nothing special about Herb’s Electronics as a coffee shop, which was fine, because Zhenya had never tried making coffee before in his life anyways. Sometimes he put the little instant packets into hot water, and he thought he was pretty good at that, but he doubted that was how the real thing was made.

Truth be told, Zhenya had wanted to work at Herb’s Electronics before it had ever posted a Help Wanted sign.

He was sure that neither of the owners remembered it, because it had happened months ago, back in the spring when Zhenya was cramming for his exams and trying to ignore the implosion of his relationship with his most recent roommate.

Zhenya had wandered into Herb’s because it came up on Google as the nearest coffee shop to the off-campus apartment he’d been touring (the rent had been high, and the landlord was higher; Zhenya put in an application anyway).

When he’d walked in, the barista – who he’d later realized was one of the owners – was leaning with his back against the counter, calling through the propped-open door to the kitchen.

“ _Paulie_ ,” he whined. “How will I know if I can do it if you won’t let me _try_ it?”

An exasperated voice had called back from the kitchen, “For Christ’s sake, James, for the last time, I am not throwing raw cookie dough for you to catch _in your mouth!_ ”

“…So does that mean you’ll throw it if I catch it in my hands?”

“No!”

“But _Paulie-_ ”

It was at that point in his whining that the barista – James – had slumped so far back against the counter that his head was resting on the countertop, and it was only by chance that his eyes slid upwards and towards the door, where Zhenya was still standing.

“Oh, f- hi there!”

Never in his life had Zhenya seen someone fling themselves into motion so quickly. James turned around like he had twelve limbs and none of them were cooperating with him.

“Hey! Hi, sorry about that. Uh, welcome to Herb’s, what can I get for y-”

At that exact moment, a projectile came flying through the open door, slamming into the back of James’s head and then just…staying there.

James’s face took on the sort of frozen, vacant stare usually only seen on someone experiencing a traumatic flashback – or experiencing a moment that was about to become one.

“Paul, dearest. Darling. Light of my life.”

Zhenya wouldn’t learn for over a year that the only time James used sappy pet names on Paul, it was because he was about to kill him. Then again, he could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually seen James mad at anybody, let alone Paul.

“I think your cookie dough needs a little more flour, _Paul_. Do you want to know why, _Paul_?”

It never occurred to Zhenya until later that he never actually saw Paul, that first day. He just heard the snickering from the kitchen followed by, “Hey, you asked for it. You complained about it for half an hour.”

James continued speaking louder, clearly not listening at all. “Because your _dough_ is in my _hair_ , _Paul_!”

As if to be contrary, as he turned around to yell, the tiny ball of dough made a slow escape to freedom and dropped to the floor behind the counter.

“Calm down, it will wash out.”

“That’s not the _point_ , Paul!”

“No, the point is – James do you have a customer out there?”

James spun around, eyes going wide again as he remembered that Zhenya was there.

Zhenya stood waiting patiently, his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes bright, wearing an even brighter smile.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry,” James said. “Please don’t leave us a bad review on Yelp.”

“Are you hiring?”

“Are we – what? No, no we aren’t – why the hell – you know what, no, whatever. Look, I’m sorry, I can’t really make this better. You don’t want coffee here, trust me. Here, look, take five bucks and go to the Starbucks a few blocks over, you’ll thank me later. Have a muffin for the road.”

Thirty seconds later Zhenya was standing outside of Herb’s Electronics with a chocolate chip muffin, a crumpled five dollar bill, and a dream:

He was going to get a job at Herb’s Electronics, and he was going to make those two weird men be his friends.

Like everything Zhenya did, it was methodical. When he’d first started mapping out his plan of attack, he’d realized that the whole getting-a-job part would be difficult, not because they weren’t hiring (anyone could be hiring, if you pestered them enough), but because he didn’t have the relevant skills to make himself marketable enough to argue to the owners that he was _worth_ the risk of hiring.

Zhenya was nothing if not a problem-solver.

Step one, look for a role to fill, something the business was lacking where he could argue he had integral knowledge and skills. Well, James clearly didn’t seem confident in his own coffee-making abilities if he paid Zhenya to leave and get coffee elsewhere, so he should apply to be a barista.

Step two, learn how to be a barista.

Most people did that by working at another coffee shop, but Zhenya had neither the time nor the inclination for that. Instead, he started by using his parents’ credit card to buy his own gourmet coffee-making set-up, and watching a shit-ton of YouTube tutorials. It wasn’t really a major change in how he already spent his time, except his Netflix queue was getting lonely without him. His roommate was blessedly back to giving him the cold shoulder, so he wasn’t around to ask what the hell Zhenya was doing practicing foam art on thirty lattes in their shared kitchen, and Zhenya’s friends didn’t question anything because they didn’t exist.

One of the tutorials he read said that when it came to foam art, it could be fun to branch out into different patterns and designs, but the true professional should find an image that becomes their signature, entirely associated with them. Most recommended trying something like a snowflake or a leaf or a geometric design.

Zhenya made the most beautiful symbol known to man: the Washington Capital’s weagle logo. After all, his Caps had never let him down yet, and he didn’t see how they could now.

(Well, they let him down a little bit when they didn’t offer a new contract to Sasha, but that was neither here nor there.)

By the time Herb’s was actually hiring, Zhenya’s weagle was a thing of art, and he actually knew how to make coffee to boot.

James called him in for an interview the day after he submitted an application.

“I can’t read this,” was the first thing he said when Zhenya sat down in his office, waving around his application forms.

Before Zhenya’s stomach had the chance to drop in fear, James squinted at him through his glasses. “Does this mean you know how to make coffee?”

Zhenya put on his most winning smile, the charismatic one he’d circled on his war board as an integral part of his plan, and said, “Yes.”

A normal owner would have asked for elaboration, but James didn’t, because evidently that in and of itself was impressive to him.

“Okay. Well, can’t be worse than mine. Let’s see you in action.”

If Zhenya smiled any wider, they’d probably think something was wrong with him. Maybe they already did, but that was okay, because Zhenya was pretty sure there was something wrong with James and Paul, anyways. That’s why he liked them so much.

He was still smiling when he slid James his absolute best weagle latte ever.

James squinted down at it. He did a lot of that for someone already wearing glasses.

“Is that…is that the Caps logo?”

“Best team,” Zhenya agreed.

“Well, I’m impressed. Let me have Paulie try it.”

He walked to the back with the latte, leaving Zhenya alone out front, with full access to the register, probably less because James was that trusting of Zhenya and more because it hadn’t occurred to him that it was a poor idea.

Zhenya was on his best behavior, however, and so he occupied himself by making another latte.

When he came back, he looked mildly impressed. “Well, Paul said it’s good, and that’s good enough for me. How do you feel about working here, Evg…Egv…Ev-genie?”

Zhenya couldn’t hide his wince. It was on the tip of his tongue to correct James, or to tell him to just use Zhenya, when a thought occurred to him.

This was what he’d been waiting for all along, wasn’t it? This was what coming to America had all been about: making a fresh start, making a new _Zhenya_ , somewhere new where he could be a brand new person, cool and confident and funny, the type of person who had _friends_. Maybe these last few years had been a series of false starts, but this, _this_ showed promise. This was his chance to turn it all around.

He slid James the latest weagle latte and put on his best smile.

“Call me Kuzya.”


	8. SJS Electrical: Paul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: I would love to read more about sjs electronics and their quest to find the other electronic shop who keeps giving fake names! Your writings amazing by the way!
> 
> 11/25/18

“I think I’ve narrowed down our list of suspects,” Timo announced loudly. He spoke with the air of someone who should have been slamming down a map on a table for everyone to crowd around, but because it was Timo, he waited a few beats, and when nobody moved, he huffed loudly.

“Will everyone please come look at this beautiful map I’ve made on my computer?”

If Joe purposely dragged his feet just to make Timo wait longer, nobody had to know about it.

Everyone squinted at the screen for a moment – and Joe regretted not bringing his reading glasses because he had a hell of a time reading off of screens without them – before Burnsie cleared his throat.

“Uh, bud? Not to rain on your parade or anything, because this is great work, but you literally just put some pins into Google Maps. No offense, but even Jumbo could do that.”

Joe actually didn’t know how to do that, but he didn’t want to fuel the fire by letting them know that.

A group of young women waiting with baited breath to have an iPhone repaired had once said that Timo’s eyebrows were a thing of beauty, but Joe personally loved it when his eye started to do that thing where it looked like it would have been twitching in irritation if he wasn’t actively fighting against it, until his whole face looked red and strained.

It all came from a place of love, honest.

“ _No_ , jackass, I looked at local shops in the area that offer repair services, and then I pared down the list to whoever would qualify as being ‘a few blocks over.’ Add in that the one weird guy with the espresso machine said that they had a weird name, and I’ve got us down to two options.”

Once he’d made sure that they were all suitably enthralled, he continued.

“Our first option is Circuits R Us.”

Marc nearly choked on his coffee; Joe gave him a few solid thumps on the back until Marc gave him the thumbs up that he was okay.

Most of the others didn’t even notice that exchange because they were too busy laughing.

“Can you call it a shop if he doesn’t actually have a storefront?” Burnsie grinned.

“Hey, if you operate out of the back of your van, you can technically be 'a few blocks over’ at any given time,” Jonesy pointed out.

That set them all going again.

Circuits R Us was the name that a disgruntled former Radio Shack employee had given the “mobile repair business” that he operated out of the back of a dented-up panel van that he may or may not have lived in at any given time. The only reason anyone knew he existed was because on occasion he liked to park in front of SJS Electrical and try to snipe their business, just in case anyone felt like entrusting their electronics to a white man with dreads and a windowless van.

They didn’t even bother to call the cops on him most of the time because of the entertainment value he provided.

“ _The other alternative_ ,” Timo said loudly, trying to get their focus back on him. “…is that it’s Greg.”

“Oh my God,” Jonesy groaned, putting his head in his hands. “For the last time it is _not Greg_.”

“We don’t know that!” Timo protested, pointing a finger at him. “You know he’s mad that he lost us – mostly me – and he’d do anything to mock us now.”

“Including opening a fake repair storefront just so he could give customers stupid names for our business _while sending their business to us_?”

“Sounds plausible,” Marc said, because he liked to watch the world burn.

Greg was the supervisor of the Geek Squad at the Best Buy where Jonesy and Timo used to work. Apparently their departure had been acrimonious at best, and ever since then Timo had been utterly convinced that Greg somehow had it out for them, as if he would somehow seek revenge on them for leaving his store by drumming up more business for them.

“Let’s say it’s probably not Greg,” Pavs interrupted. “And I highly doubt most people take advice from the Circuits R Us guy either. So where does that leave us?”

They all leaned in closer to get another look at Timo’s map. It only had the two markers on it, set inside a circle.

Without anyone needing to verbalize their scrutiny, Timo was already hunched up and looking grumpy. “The circle is a five block radius around the store. It’s the most I could figure someone calling 'a few blocks.’”

Google Maps helpfully marked all of the businesses in that circle, in case they were wondering where Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts were when searching for electronics.

“Aw, it still shows Herb’s.” Burnsie pointed at the screen, and sure enough a red marker was next to the name Herb’s Electronics.

“You’d think Google would have updated their systems by now,” Marc muttered.

Pavs shrugged. “Maybe not, if nobody ever made a formal post saying it was shut down or anything? Herb was never the type to have a website anyways, it’s not like there’d be an online indicator that he was gone.”

“Still, it’s sad. And while I could totally believe that the ghost of Herb Martin was sending us his old customers, I’m not so sure he’d be creative enough to come up with all the names.”

As if summoned, a woman around Jonesy’s age came in holding an HP laptop.

“Ugh, it’s for you,” Timo grumbled, elbowing Jonesy in the side. He was undoubtedly jealous, even if that poor girl would be barking way up the wrong tree with Jonesy.

“Hi!” she said, smiling briefly but looking a little uneasy. Joe figured he might be a little intimidated too if he walked in and found what looked to be all six of the store's employees piled up in a corner together. “Uh, I’m not sure I have the right place because the name doesn’t totally match. Is this Seeping Julep Silos Electrical?”

Joe was going to end this once and for all. Putting on his finest customer service smile he said, “Yes it is. I’m Joe, I’m one of the owners here. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind telling me who directed you here? I just want to thank them for all of the business they’ve been sending us.”

And also figure out who the hell they were and if they had some sort of problem with SJS or just a really bizarre sense of humor.

He was bracing himself for the next line – “oh, that place a few blocks over, the other electronics shop!” – when the girl visibly relaxed, her smile turning a little warm.

“Of course I don’t mind,” she said, “Paul told me to come here.”

Joe could already hear Timo’s fervent typing behind him.

_Paul._

Joe was going to have a very interesting conversation with Paul, once he figured out who the hell he was.

“Ma'am,” Burnsie said slowly, “Just to clarify things, your friend Paul doesn’t actually operate out of the back of a sketchy looking van, right?”


	9. Herb's Sangria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Adventures in sangria making, for the prompt pile (brought to you by my ex-roommate's inability to read recipes or listen to people who've got experience)
> 
> This fic is brought to you by someone who doesn’t drink, but once ten years ago watched her uncles try to make some bastardized sangria version of [this](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/f8b33f84-1ed8-43a5-9dc2-d08832a04bad_1.bbdb3316f243da57bd396721b926afc6.jpeg?odnHeight=450&odnWidth=450&odnBg=FFFFFF), following the exact conversation contained herein, which I now forever associate with sangria. I made it a Herb’s fic because you didn’t list a preference.
> 
> 12/8/18

“It says to cut it in the middle of the bag.”

James didn’t have his glasses on, but he didn’t need to squint to see the very clear black dashed line that said “cut here,” placed right in the middle of the plastic bag.

Rich scoffed and tugged the bag from his hands. The red liquid sloshed as the bag was manhandled. “You can’t cut it in the middle of the bag, it would be a mess. You’d have to cut on the edge, at least…”

He trailed off, finally having noticed the big dashed line centered in the middle of the bag. Rich was actually wearing his glasses, but he started squinting too.

“Maybe…maybe they want you to cut the center of the bag so you can hook it directly to the tap?”

James picked up the instructions again. “But what’s the purpose of the tap being attached to the bucket if you have to keep the sangria in the bag inside the bucket anyways? And why couldn’t you cut the edge and hook it to the tap? There has to be something special about the middle.”

This was the proverbial hell that Paul walked in on, in his own kitchen.

It was a testament to how horrific he found it, because he actually stopped in his tracks and pushed his glasses up his nose like he obviously couldn’t be seeing things clearly.

“The fuck is this?” he asked. He sounded like he’d been hanging around Carey too much.

“We’re making sangria for the party,” James said. He turned the bucket so that Paul could read the label printed on the front.

Now Paul was squinting too, but James had the feeling that it wasn’t because he couldn’t read the words.

“One, you don’t drink,” he said, pointing at Rich; Rich shrugged amiably. “And two, why the fuck is there a bucket involved in making sangria?”

“It came in the bucket.” James held the bucket up again in case Paul had missed it the first time. “And then it just comes out the little spout on the side of the bucket!”

That was when Ben came in, long since past the point of knocking on a football Sunday, carrying a shopping bag of chips and a casserole dish of what was hopefully Buffalo wing dip.

He stopped short in the door to the kitchen, towering over Paul’s shoulder.

“Is that a bucket of wine?” he asked.

“It’s going to be,” James agreed.

Ben squinted at the label too, and James thought that maybe they all needed their prescriptions checked.

“Doesn’t sangria need…actual fruit in it?”

Rich took the bucket from James and held it up in front of his face to read the label again. “‘All the natural fruit flavors of homemade sangria. A tropical explosion in your mouth.’ Nope it says they’re all in there.”

“But you aren’t going to have to drink it,” Paul said.

Rich smiled as sweetly as he was able, which at this point everyone knew meant he was bullshitting.

“It’s my contribution. You wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings and not drink it, would you?”

There was the sound of the door opening, and soon after Carey and PK were piling in the doorway too. They both stopped short at the sight of the bucket.

“Wow,” Carey drawled, “We’ve gone past the boxed wine stage and straight to the premixed wine bucket. I think we’ve hit new levels of trashy, boys.”

The door opened and shut with a slam, followed by Kuzy’s voice calling out, “Nealer, store has no tiny umbrellas but I have toothpicks with tiny lobsters!”

Carey nodded. “I stand corrected.”

They all stood there for a moment, staring at each other, and then at the wine bag, the bucket, and back at each other.

Carey grabbed a knife from the drawer. “So we cut it from the middle?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Well okay then, let’s get it in the bucket, it’s gonna be a bleeder.”


	10. Ben/Cam: Groceries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Sangria anon again! 1) that was a delight, thank you thank you thank you! 2) No preferences because I enjoy everything you write, 3) sorry that was the only prompt you got! Here's another, once again brought about by my ex-roomie, but involving also my own dumbass choices-- Trader Joe's on a Sunday, with a baby (or a dumb rookie. I had a baby with me, but YMMV regarding babies)
> 
> I have literally never been in a Trader Joe’s in my life and my only knowledge of them (aside from what I googled) is a friend I had in high school who was hella pretentious about food and thought TJ’s was amazing (it’s where she got her dried seaweed sheets that she ate every day while making snide remarks about the origins of everyone’s produce). Anyways that’s why this is so short, and I couldn’t finagle a baby (or rookie) into it because Ben wanted to star and I couldn’t figure why he’d have one along.
> 
> 12/8/18

Ben wouldn’t say that he grew up poor, because his father had a steady job and good benefits as a police officer. Even as a single parent, they certainly were never living in poverty.

But his father had clear priorities when it came to what he would spend money on, and organic groceries that touted themselves as being some type of gourmet were never at the top of the list. For one, they were expensive, and for another, Ben had never met a cop whose lip didn’t curl at the word “organic.”

Ben became very familiar with the frozen sections at Aldi and Save-A-Lot.

Even as an adult with a culinary background, Ben was never very concerned with where his products came from. Sure, he valued using fresh ingredients, but there was always that voice in the back of his head that couldn’t fathom paying over a certain amount for, well, anything.

It sounded a little bit like his father, sometimes.

_If it’s that expensive, you don’t need it._

This was all to say, Ben had never been to a Trader Joe’s. That wasn’t a statement that bothered him very much. He was getting along just fine without it.

It bothered Cam a lot more.

“You mean you don’t eat organic?” Cam asked, like the thought had never before crossed his mind.

Ben frowned. “Well, I haven’t died yet.”

“Of course you haven’t.” Cam patted Ben’s stomach; Ben wasn’t sure which one of them he thought that was going to reassure. “C'mon, we’ll be quick. I just want to get a few things, in and out.”

It was a Sunday, and Ben’s day off, and he didn’t really want to spend it in a grocery store. But Cam was insistent that he was going to cook Ben dinner again, and he’d been out of town and had no food in his house, so all Ben could do was grin and agree to push the shopping cart.

Which was more difficult than it looked, because it appeared that half of Nashville was in that Trader Joe’s.

“You know Kroger has an organics section if you want it that badly,” he said. Kroger also had larger aisles to accommodate the sea of shopping carts.

Cam waved him off so that he could critically examine a pair of artichokes wrapped in plastic. “We’ll just be a minute, you’re fine.”

Maybe it was just because Ben was so much taller than Cam and could view the full sea of people around them, but he had a feeling that they weren’t going to just be “a minute,” even with the best of intentions.

Within the next five minutes, he received one elbow to the kidney as someone shoved past him to get a free cheese sample, two carts had been run over his foot by people who were looking at other plastic-wrapped produce, and a stupid number of people in Hawaiian shirts had gone running by chasing after bells.

Cam was still squinting at two different cartons of organic soy milk, even though he claimed he came here all the time and already knew all of the stock.

Ben decided that next time, he’d offer to do Cam’s grocery shopping for him. If he was lucky, Cam would think it was romantic.


	11. SJS Electrical: Dads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pedanticoctopodes prompted: SJS Electronics and exasperated dad energy
> 
> 12/9/18

“You know why neither of us has kids?” Joe asked Pavs one day over lunch. _Lunch,_ for them, constituted eating wrapped sandwiches on the other side of the desk they now shared in the office, because the other desk had long since been buried under spare parts and nobody could be bothered to fight to win it back.

Pavs didn’t even miss a beat, taking a bite as he said, “Because nobody will have us?”

That was…not entirely untrue.

“No – well, yes, partially that – but _also_ because if we had kids it would probably be like dealing with _that_.”

Joe pointed at the office door. It was closed, but the soundproofing at SJS was notoriously poor, so they could clearly hear the bickering out front.

“I’m just saying, what’s the accomplishment in a computer so thin it fits in a packing envelope if it doesn’t improve the functionality of the machine?”

“It’s for the _aesthetic, God_! Who wouldn’t want a computer that slim? It’s a triumph of engineering!”

 _A triumph_ , Joe mouthed at Pavs.

“It’s a good way to break your own laptop by setting it down on a hard surface.”

“At least my computer doesn’t have _Internet Explorer_.”

Joe frowned. He used Internet Explorer.

“We both know that nobody uses the native browser on any computer, we’re all using Chrome anyway-”

Pavs leaned back in his chair and called over his shoulder towards the closed door, “Hey boys, how do we feel about Linux?”

Joe was surprised that he actually got them to shut up for a moment. Then a timid, “Phones or computers?”

“Computers!”

The twin groans of disgust were ridiculously satisfying.

“You’re good at this.” Joe pointed at Pavs with his sandwich. “Maybe you could pull off being a dad.”

Pavs slumped down even lower in his chair. It creaked ominously to remind them that there were only so many times they could drill extra holes to fasten it together before the whole thing just collapsed.

“What, because I’m good at harassing them? Nah. You have to be, like. Approachable and advice-giving and all that. Basically…”

He and Joe sighed at the same time.

“Patty.”

It was in bad taste to drink at work, and so they toasted with their coffee mugs instead.

They chewed in pensive silence for another few minutes.

“I mean, we’re not so bad, right?” Pavs said. “We give advice and shit. Sometimes.”

“If they’re willing to hear it,” Joe grumbled.

The young guys really weren’t interested in anything more than five years old. Even Jonesy, who was generally much more agreeable about humoring them than Timo, had apologetically said that he just didn’t see the point in bothering to learn about something that was _obsolete_.

He could have just stabbed Joe in the heart with a whip antenna.

Maybe the things that Joe and Pavs loved so much were outdated, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have their place.

God, Joe had to stop equating himself to his work. Maybe he really was getting old.

Pavs was still unbothered, shrugging and bumping his foot against Joe’s under the desk.

“Just wait until one of them needs a ballast replaced or their air conditioner won’t work or something like that, then they’ll be all over us whining that they want our help. Remember when Timo’s little Roomba thing broke? You would have thought someone had shot his puppy.”

Timo had looked pretty pathetic, wringing his hands like a worried parent as Marc hunched over his poor little vacuum.

“Could have just gotten a normal vacuum,” Joe pointed out.

“Yeah, but they’re dumb, and I don’t think either of those nerds could resist the temptation of a vacuum that calls itself a robot. Give them time, they’ll let us know when they need us.”

Joe put his sandwich down and squinted at him. “Where the hell did you get something insightful and dad-ly like that?”

Pavs didn’t even have the good grace to look abashed, but then again, Joe had known him long enough not to really expect it either. Instead Pavs smiled widely and toothily, entirely unashamed.

“It’s what Patty said to me when I called to complain about Timo insulting CB radios.”

Joe scoffed in disgust. “Who doesn’t love a CB radio?”

They clinked their mugs together again in solidarity.

Patty had always loved CB radios too. It was how the three of them had met, after all: the only three people under the age of forty at the Great Lakes International CB Radio Convention.

Well, them and Nabby. But Nabby barely counted. For all that he was only four years older than Joe and Patty, he’d almost been like their dad. A wise older brother, at least.

While everyone else at that convention had collected radios, Nabby had collected people.

He was good at it, too: when he went back to Nashville, he’d brought three with him.

Joe sighed. “Maybe it’s time to do another in-service training with the team.”

Pavs perked up. “CBs?”

“Of course.”

“Mandatory?”

“Is it ever anything but?”

Pavs smirked and rubbed a hand over his beard. “The boys are gonna hate it.”

“Yeah, but Burnsie gets a kick out of it, and besides, a little bit of education never hurt anyone.”

Feeling more invigorated than he had in weeks, Joe popped out of his chair and strode towards the door. Pulling it open with a flourish, he called out, “You’ve heard of talking to strangers on the internet, but do you want to know how you met strangers back in the good old days, boys?”

“Oh, fuck no.”

“Don’t even start-”

“Joe, you’re not seriously going to-”

Joe clapped his hands together and smiled. “It’s time to do a little learning about the CB radio, boys.”

The groans were music to his ears.

Harassing your kids with irritating life lessons? Fuck yeah, Joe would be a great dad.


	12. Ben/Cam: Baking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Hi! If you’re still taking prompts, I’d love to see more of Ben and Cam in the Herb’s Electronics verse. Maybe Ben’s first time taking Cam’s family up on the offer to spend time with them? Or Cam trying to bake something for Ben?
> 
> 12/9/18

Ben probably should have known that Cam was up to something when he texted to ask if there was really a difference between butter and margarine, followed by asking if there was a difference between baking powder and baking soda.

(Just thinking about that question had been painful.)

And yet he somehow still wasn’t expecting it when he arrived at Cam’s house that evening to be greeted with the smell of…well, it certainly was something. He could hear what sounded suspiciously like the whirr of a mixer in the kitchen, followed by something clattering against porcelain.

Max whined and pawed at Ben’s leg until Ben leaned down to pet him.

“What’s he doing to you, bud?” Ben asked as he played with Max’s ears. Max licked his chin and nudged closer.

“Don’t you put bad ideas in my baby’s head!”

Cam came through the door to the kitchen. He was wearing a grey Henley that was just a little bit too tight, and had rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. On a normal day that would be enticing enough to distract Ben, but today he was distracted by the visible flour strafed across his shirt.

“Are you, uh…” Ben trailed off and waved a hand at Cam’s shirt. “Are you baking or something?”

At this point he was actually pretty fond of the way that Cam would toss his head and roll his eyes.

“It’s a surprise,” Cam said primly. He patted Max on the head and then reached up to pull Ben down by the collar of his shirt. Ben went willingly, closing his eyes as his lips moved over Cam’s. He moved a hand to Cam’s waist, pulling him in closer – and then an alarm went off in the kitchen and Cam sprang away from him.

“It’s done!”

The next thing Ben knew Cam was gone, bolting back into the kitchen and banging around with some sort of pans.

Ben exchanged a look with Max. “I know, I’m a little afraid to look too.”

But they had to look eventually, so Ben and Max braved the kitchen.

The first thing he noticed was that there was more flour on the countertop than on Cam. That felt like a small victory, but was also unsettling given the amount of flour currently on Cam.

The second thing he noticed was Cam peering miserably at a pan of what were maybe supposed to be brownies, based on the cocoa powder and bags of chocolate chips lying around.

“Are you looking to give us some competition and sell your own stuff?” he decided to ask. There really wasn’t a better reason for why Cam had so many half-filled bowls out.

Cam looked at the pan of half-baked brown liquid and then back up at Ben.

“I was trying to surprise you,” he grumbled, “And the internet said this was easy and supposed to take ten minutes. How was I supposed to know you have to thaw the butter first? So then I’m like, trying to massage it between my hands to warm it up, right? And-”

“Hold on, you massaged the butter?”

Cam squinted at him and sat the pan down on the counter. “That’s what I said, yeah. And I finally got it warm enough that I could use it, and it wasn’t till after I stuffed it in a measuring cup that I realized it had the little increments to measure it out on the side of the wrapper. And then I did what it said and I melted it on the stove, and that was going okay, kind of like normal cooking, and then I mixed the sugar in and it said not to boil it so I didn’t, but it turned a little brown and stuff, and the internet says that means I caramelized it and I was like ‘well that has to be good because that means it’s going to be sweet now!’ Ben, I was _wrong_.”

He sounded so sad that Ben really felt like an ass for laughing so much, but he couldn’t help himself. One hand pressed to his stomach and the other braced on the counter to support him as he bent over, Ben tried to control his hiccupping laughter as best he could.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he choked between laughs. “I’m not – I’m not laughing at you! But that’s the funniest shit I’ve heard all day, oh my God.”

When he looked up, Cam was giving him these big, pathetically sad puppy eyes, and he was too damn cute for Ben not to pull him into a hug. Cam was a glutton for hugs and went easily, pressing his face into Ben’s shoulder.

Ben stroked his hand through Cam’s hair, absent-mindedly trying to brush some of the flour out. “Tell me what happened next.”

“Well,” Cam mumbled into Ben’s shirt, “I added all the other stuff the way it said to, and it was going okay, until I went to put the flour in. It said to stir the flour into the bowl, and stirring is making everything go around the bowl, and I was already doing that with the mixer, so I turned the mixer on, and-”

Ben missed the next thing he said because he was valiantly burying his face against Cam’s neck to keep from laughing out loud again.

“But then I finally pry it out of the bowl and get it into the pan and I’m like, ‘this was pretty easy, I can make another batch to send to my mom to show her I can bake now!’ And I think the second one was going better except I had the mixer running when I put the egg in and then I think I accidentally dropped like, a good half of a shell in there, and it got all crunched up in the batter, so now I’ve been trying to like, pick out the little shell bits. And then my first batch was ready so I went to get them, but they look like that.”

Cam turned his head so that his cheek rested against Ben’s chest, giving him a good vantage point with which to stare sadly at his half-cooked creation.

He raised a hand and patted Ben’s chest.

“You can laugh now.”

The sound that Ben made was somewhere between a wheeze and a gasp. _“Oh thank God.”_

It felt so good to get it out, and Cam was a good sport about it, just pressing his face to Ben’s chest and waiting him out. When Ben was able to pull himself together again, Cam still had one hand on Ben’s chest and the other gripping onto his belt loop.

“Okay, Mr. Professional Baker,” Cam sighed, “Tell me what’s wrong with this.”

He pointed at his temperature-challenged first batch of brownies.

Ben had an idea of what may have gone wrong there, and he felt like a jerk having to inquire this when it would be offensive to say this to another baker, but he still had to ask…

“Cam. You did preheat the oven before you put those in, right?”

Cam reared back and made a face up at him. “Why would I turn the oven on before I was ready to use it? That’s wasteful, Benjamin.”

He would be forever grateful that Cam was such a good sport, because when Ben had to duck his head to start laughing again, Cam just sighed and rubbed his back.

“You know you’re going to have to fix this for me, right?” Cam said into Ben’s shoulder. “I’ve already gloated to my mom, I promised her brownies.”

“Yeah, I’ll help you fix it.”

Combining Cam and baking, his two favorite things – there was nothing Ben would like more.

“Do we need to massage more butter?”

Once he taught his boyfriend to stop getting to second base with dairy products, maybe Ben could make a baker out of him yet.


	13. The Anniversary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For @ashipwreckcoast.
> 
> 12/11/18

Paul turned up the radio to hear the weather report over the sound of rain pounding against the car.

“What, do you need a confirmation or something?” James scoffed. It was difficult enough driving in these conditions, headlights glaring unhelpfully off the wet pavement in front of him and doing a better job to blind him than to actually help him navigate.

The rain had already started when they’d left the arena, and it had only gotten worse once they’d hit the highway. If they’d just rented an apartment two minutes away from the arena they wouldn’t have had this issue, but no, Paul had insisted that they’d get a better price living somewhere on the other side of town “away from the student demand.” Now James was left squinting at the asphalt, trying to pick out lane markers in the wet smear of the pavement.

“I want to hear if it’s supposed to clear up tomorrow,” Paul said. “If it does, we can cook ribs on the grill.”

The promise of potential ribs was enough to shut James up.

 _“It’s a wet one out there tonight folks!”_ the man on the radio was saying.

They were pretty much the only ones out driving right now. It was past eleven on a Wednesday night during a torrential downpour; nobody in their right mind would want to be traveling right now.

Nobody except for James and Paul, evidently.

_“Expect the deluge to continue through the night.”_

James muttered a curse as a set of headlights crested the horizon in the other lane. Fuck, asshole thought this was a good time to have his high beams on? James flicked his own high beams on and off, hoping the guy would catch on and do him the favor of not blinding him, but the high beams stayed on. They seemed to waver a little, and for a moment James thought the car might be hydroplaning, but it was too far away to tell.

“What a dick,” Paul mumbled.

It was a stark contrast to the weatherman’s chipper delivery. _“Chances of showers in the early morning, so bring your umbrellas for that morning commute!”_

The oncoming car seemed to get traction again because the lights stopped wobbling. James was doing his best to keep his eyes averted, if only so he didn’t go off the road himself.

But he could still see enough of the car to know that the lights were getting imminently closer. As he turned his wheel into the gentle curve of the road, it distantly registered that the headlights still appeared to be aimed straight at him.

“Fucking high beams.” It felt good to say it out loud, even if it did nothing to change them.

_“We’re in for a grey day tomorrow, with cloudy skies in the afternoon.”_

The lights kept creeping closer, shockingly bright. James would have moved to the right to try to avoid some of the glare, but the road had gone down to a single lane in either direction. At least it would be passing soon.

Except.

The road was still curving, and the lights were still coming straight towards them. They were bigger and bigger, until they engulfed the windshield. In the moment between the swipes of the windshield wipers, James could make out the individual raindrops splattered across the glass, an array of so many imperfect diamonds.

The wipers scraped the glass clean, and the lights were directly in front of the car, mere yards away.

James could only watch as the night outside the car turned bright, bright white. It was the closest thing he’d ever felt to an out-of-body experience, as if he was watching someone else drive a car into some sort of afterlife, blindingly luminous and all-encompassing.

This couldn’t be happening.

He had a paper due Friday.

A creaking, grinding, shattering crash, sharp jerk forward _crack_ -

_“But as we approach evening those clouds should clear up, just in time for a beautiful sunset.”_

~~~

His ribs protested when James shot awake in bed. He clutched at them, taking deep, shuddering breaths, trying to remind himself that the sharp ache was because he’d slept on them awkwardly, and not because they’d cracked and torn open his lungs again.

It took him a moment to recognize that the band tightening over his waist wasn’t a seatbelt fastening him in place, but Rich’s arm, warm and alive.

“Babe?” Rich looked as exhausted as he sounded, rubbing a hand over his face as he squinted up at James. “What’s going on?”

James’s gaze slid to the clock on his nightstand.

2:47 in the morning.

Well, it made sense.

For most of the year he really did feel okay, and he was pretty sure he was far past being over the accident by now. But every year, just like clockwork, the anniversary would come around and his ribs would start to ache and he’d have trouble falling asleep. And every year on the anniversary, he’d be woken up by the same exact dream.

He wasn’t sure he could call it a nightmare when everything in it had really happened.

God. He hadn’t been able to listen to a weather report for months after the accident. He still didn’t like driving in the rain.

And James would never, ever think about touching fucking high beams again.

He must have taken too long to answer again, because Rich was dragging himself into a sitting position. Even half-asleep, he looked fucking amazing, miles of tattoos and tanned skin stretched over broad shoulders and thick muscles.

James was painfully aware of the thick, curving white lines wrapping around his rib cage in a way that he never was the other three hundred and sixty-four days a year.

He didn’t realize he’d pressed a hand to his side until Rich was peeling it free, gently folding James’s fingers inside of his own.

“Today’s the day, huh?” Rich was stroking his fingers over James’s palm, but James could see Rich watching him in the dark.

He took a breath, telling himself that his chest only felt tight in his head. “Yeah.”

For all that he really was a Dick, Rich had been a saint about letting James take his time explaining about the accident. He never made a comment the first time he’d skimmed his fingers over the divots and ridges of James’s scars, and he went out of his way to keep James from picking things up off the floor. He’d bought James a heating pad to keep at his own house without James ever having to say he used one.

It had taken months for James to finally tell him about the accident, and even then it was only because they were coming up on the anniversary. But Rich had taken it with aplomb, never pushing for more details than James felt comfortable sharing.

He knew the full story now, just like he knew how James usually ended up spending the anniversary.

There was a reason James insisted they spend the night at his place.

Rich sighed and moved to put his arm over James’s shoulder, pulling him in against his warm, firm chest. “It’s nearly three in the morning. Do you think he’d be up right now?”

James made a sad sound and slumped against Rich, resting his head on Rich’s shoulder.

“It’s nearly three in the morning. I know he’s up right now.”

Not a moment went by that James wasn’t thankful for having found a guy like Rich. Anyone else would have thought that he was insane for even suggesting what he was going to do, but Rich just…got it. He didn’t get jealous, or act like James was being unreasonable. He just pressed a kiss to James’s temple, rubbed a hand over his arm, and said, “Okay, go make him your shitty lukewarm hot chocolate.”

He even remembered what temperature James liked his hot chocolate. What a catch.

James pulled a t-shirt on and shoved his feet into a pair of slippers.

“Go to sleep,” he whispered to Rich. He kissed him quickly and then pushed him down towards the bed. Rich grumbled but didn’t fight him, which was honestly for the best; he’d stay up with James all night if James asked, but he had a game tomorrow, and this…this was something that James had to deal with on his own.

Well, not exactly on his own.

The stairwell was cold, and James traversed the steps as quickly as possible without the danger of slipping. When he reached the landing and grabbed for the doorknob, he found that it was already unlocked.

A case of Swiss Miss was sitting out on the counter next to two empty mugs, lying in wait. Only a single lamp lit the apartment, illuminating Paul’s figure hunched up on the couch. He had his knees drawn up on the couch cushions with him the way that he only did once a year.

James sighed and started the electric kettle. He didn’t say anything as he waited for the water to boil, nor as he mixed packets of instant hot chocolate into both mugs.

When he came back to the couch, he set one mug on the coffee table to cool and presented the other to Paul. He wasn’t surprised not to get a reaction, gamely grabbing one of Paul’s hands and curling it around the mug until he felt his grip tighten as if Paul was coming to life.

Paul blinked blearily down at the mug in his hands, less like he’d woken up and more like he’d just returned from somewhere far, far away.

“It was too quiet,” Paul croaked to the mug. “I couldn’t hear…”

He couldn’t hear anything, probably, except for the white noise machine that he couldn’t sleep without. For as much as Paul appreciated things that were staid and sedate, he couldn’t stand absolute silence. He said it reminded him too much of the time he spent straining to catch the slightest breath to let him know that James was still alive.

It had taken over twenty minutes for the paramedics to arrive and tell him that James was actually still breathing. To this day Paul called it the worst twenty minutes of his life.

Now he’d do anything he could to avoid absolute silence, and the rain setting on his white noise machine didn’t get much use either.

Paul wasn’t falling apart, but there were a lot of little things that helped him stay together.

“This is actually warm.” Paul looked at the mug in surprise.

James rolled his eyes and leaned into his side. “Give it a few minutes and it’ll be frigid, just like old times.”

Just like back in the hospital where they’d spent months rehabbing together. They hadn’t had easy access to boiling water, and so James had made little packets of hot chocolate using the warmest temperature on the bathroom sink, and then he’d bring it to Paul. Paul’s foot would be wrapped in bandages from the latest reconstructive surgery, and so James would bring the mug to his bedside, and every single time Paul would act like he was surprised to find that the hot chocolate was really closer to room temperature.

“This is disgusting,” he’d say, but he’d drink it anyway, mini marshmallows and all. And then he’d be able to sleep, squeezing James’s hand in his own, taking comfort in his rough, shuddery breaths.

The nurses would scold James for leaving his bed and for sleeping in a chair, to the point that Paul would become concerned and try to dissuade James from visiting. Eventually everyone agreed it would just be easier to let James and Paul stay in the same room.

Their little basket of Swiss Miss was never allowed to run empty.

Paul took a sip from his mug now, cradling it between his knees.

“I wasn’t sure you would come,” he whispered to the mug. “I would understand if you didn’t.”

James sighed and rested his head against Paul’s, nearly mirroring the position he’d been in with Rich not that long ago.

“I’m always gonna come, Paulie. Just like you’d do the same for me. Besides, I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

On a normal day Paul would admonish him for that, but today wasn’t a normal day.

Today, Paul and James would take a day off from work and let the boys run the shop. Today, they would stay at Paul’s apartment and make the Pillsbury slice and bake cookies that Paul never let James eat the rest of the year, because those had been what their teammates had all brought them in the hospital after the accident.

Then, rain or shine, in the evening Paul would barbecue pork ribs for dinner. It was still a good way to shut James up.

The next morning they would bring themselves back to normal life, and they would go on as they always did, a little haggard, but not much worse for wear.

But today, this one day a year, they would show their scars, the little fissures where they’d fallen apart and had to be glued back together, and in the end, they’d come out stronger for it.

James leaned against Paul, closed his eyes, and breathed.


	14. Carey/PK: Meeting the Team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: How do the rest of the preds react to finding out SCarey is the same guy PKs been pining over. I feel like fiallas reaction alone would be worth a whole story. Thank you :)
> 
> 12/12/18

Maybe Carey was thinking too highly of himself, but the first time PK brought him to a team event, he expected that the only reason someone might recognize him would be from his days in Montreal.

To be fair, the only one on the team who had met him before was Yannick Weber, whose last season with Montreal was Carey’s first. They hadn’t known each other well, given the lockout-abbreviated season. Carey couldn’t remember Weber ever having come into Herb’s, but even if he had, he wasn’t sure that Weber would recognize or remember him.

But there was always a lingering possibility that someone else in the hockey world may have heard the story of Carey’s disappearance and remembered his face. None of the team had so far, but there was always a chance that someone might figure it out.

The Preds were doing a holiday charity event – the same one that had given Herb’s its first big break two years ago. Carey knew all about it, because Ben and Paul had spent weeks prepping the order. All of the players were bringing their significant others, and James had made more than one comment about how weird it made him feel to actually be an invited guest to the same event he’d catered, even though he’d been in the same position last year.

Having James there was Carey’s one source of relief. Not that he expected PK to abandon him at a party full of strangers – if anything, PK would go out of his way to stick by Carey’s side, even if it went against his social butterfly nature, just to keep Carey comfortable. But Carey didn’t want to restrict him like that, so it would be nice to have someone else he knew there, someone who knew his full story.

James Neal made for a good, if clueless, security blanket.

By the time they got to the event, Carey was already on edge, tugging at the collar of the one suit he still owned.

(“Babe, not that you don’t look as fine as ever, but we need to take you shopping,” PK had said when he learned of the miserable state of Carey’s wardrobe.)

The players were supposed to show up early to be there to greet actual paying guests as they arrived. And really, approaching a group of Preds players, Carey really should have expected it when someone yelped, “ _Scary?_ ”

It was as if the whole team turned to stare as one. Their reactions varied between pleasant surprise, confusion, and in a few cases, visible fear.

Carey didn’t know whether to feel guilty or smug.

He chose to lean towards smug.

PK had his arm around Carey’s waist, hand resting over his hip to hold Carey close. His grip tightened just a little bit, and Carey could understand why: even though he knew PK found the whole “SCarey” thing to be hilarious, he was still worried that his teammates would make a bad impression and scare Carey off.

It was a sweet notion, if misguided. Plenty of things overwhelmed and upset Carey nowadays that never used to make him blink, but the opinions of the Nashville Predators weren’t even on his radar.

“Guys,” PK began, using the same tone of voice that one would use to speak to a particularly slow group of kindergarteners, “This is my boyfriend, Carey.”

Forsberg actually started to choke on his drink. Carey hadn’t known that was a thing that really happened in real life.

“Wait, this is Carey?” Josi said, speaking up over the sudden burst of confusion from his teammates. “Like, _your_ Carey? Montreal Carey?”

“Runaway bride Carey?” Ellis added.

Carey made a face. “We’ve never been engaged.”

Ellis scoffed, “Dude, he bought you a _house_ when he hadn’t heard from you for two years.”

…Okay, so they knew some of the story, then.

“PK’s dating _Scary?_ ” Fiala looked like he couldn’t decide if he was terrified for PK’s continued wellbeing or impressed by his bravery.

Carey gave him a flat smile and wiggled his fingers in a wave. “Hi, Kevin.”

While he didn’t actually faint, his face did become dangerously pale.

Yeah, Carey definitely felt smug about that.

“Aw, you’re popular,” James cooed, breaking from the growing throng of people to come to Carey’s side. It looked natural on him, but Carey knew a show of support when he saw one. He was wise to James Neal’s caretaking urges, even when James himself wasn’t.

Even Clune stared oddly at James now.

“How long have you known this?”

“Known what?” James used the prim voice that meant he wasn’t going to say anything and it wasn’t worth asking any more questions.

Thankfully Clune knew him well enough to shut up.

The hand on Carey’s waist stroked up and down his side, drawing him back to PK, standing next to him like he was tensed for a fight and trying not to show it.

“Yes, Carey works for Nealer over at Herb’s Electronics. Yes, we haven’t seen each other in a while. No, we are not going to talk about it any more than that.”

Carey smirked and shook his head, nudging his hip against PK’s. The Preds weren’t going to give them a hard time, at least not the way that PK was worried about. Carey could have told him that. They might be hungry for gossip, like most hockey players, but if they’d been able to accept that Clune was dating Nealer, then they wouldn’t have an issue with Carey and PK.

Thankfully, Ekholm and Irwin’s attempt at a shovel-talk was short-lived if well-intentioned, and most of PK’s teammates snapped themselves out of their stupors long enough to welcome Carey, even if their wives or girlfriends had to elbow them a bit to get them there.

The only real issue, which was truly a non-issue in Carey’s eyes, was that the European kids kept giving him weird furtive glances all throughout the evening.

He knew exactly what it was about, of course.

“Do you want me to go talk to them?” PK asked the third time they spotted Fiala and the Swedish guys staring at them.

Carey smirked. “Nah, I think I can deal with it.”

He sauntered up to the group, already smiling widely. It was more than gratifying to see Fiala back up a step.

“Hey, boys, can I help you guys with anything?”

It was only a firm desire to see this through that kept him from laughing then and there at how quickly they shook their heads.

“No, no thank you, we’re good Scary- Carey! Carey, your name is Carey, and not…SCarey…” Fiala spoke less like he was trying to reassure himself and more like he was trying to test if Carey would deny it.

“I don’t know, do you think I’m scary?”

He didn’t know why PK was so worried. This was immensely satisfying.

“No, of course not-”

“Definitely not-”

“We wouldn’t-”

“Yes.”

The other three turned to stare at Fiala with wide, miserable eyes.

Carey smiled with a sort of saccharine sweetness that would have made anyone wary. In this case, the kids were downright paranoid.

“Thank you, Kevin. It’d be a shame to have to change my name tag.”

With that he strolled away, deciding he’d go see what Nealer found so fascinating about the hors d'oeuvres table.

As he left, he could hear one of them whisper, “You see? I _told_ you he was scary!”

Nealer narrowed his eyes in suspicion when he saw Carey approach.

“You enjoyed that way too much. You’re going to give us a bad reputation.”

“Nah, they’ll keep coming in. They like Paul’s baking too much.”

It turned out that he was right, of course. The boys came back within the week.

For as much as Carey used to dislike the SCarey name, he had to admit that being called, “Mr. Scary Price, Sir,” had a nice ring to it.


	15. SJS Electrical: Joe's New Phone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by conversation with EvilKitten42 on Ao3, Joe Thornton is forced to get a smartphone. Keep in mind this takes place approximately around the 2015-16 NHL season.
> 
> 1/9/19

Martin liked to think he was a pretty laid back person. Sure, he argued with Timo a lot, but that was a matter of professional pride. It was more sporting than actual irritation.

In general, Martin considered himself to be pretty calm.

So he was not expecting to feel so close to tears the day that Joe showed up at work with an iPhone.

It was just...so disturbing.

Joe's "phone" had been a topic of ridicule and horror from the moment that Martin and Timo started at SJS Electrical and found out that one of their new bosses still had a flip phone.

Pavs had a respectable Samsung Galaxy S4, which was a little dated for Martin's tastes, but more than serviceable.

Joe also had a Samsung phone. Martin would have been highly supportive if it wasn't a Samsung FlipShot from 2007, which coincidentally was also Joe's very first cell phone.

He didn't have anything against flip phones...back in 2007 when Martin had also had a flip phone.

Now it was just a travesty that made him want to cringe every time Joe whipped it out to tap out another painful text, having to hit the number keys multiple times to get the right letters.

The one positive to it was that if Martin found it distressing, Timo looked like his brain was melting when Joe demonstrated how the upper half of the phone could be reversed 180 degrees "so now it's like a real digital camera!"

Ever since, it had become part of their ongoing "professional rivalry" for Martin and Timo to secretly try to sway Joe to their own side by way of convincing him to get a smartphone - from their own preferred companies, of course.

Martin had thought he was winning for sure - Joe got attached to brands easily and he already had a Samsung phone, and he had an HP desktop computer using Windows 7 both at SJS and at home (because he only wanted to have to learn one system, ever, and he was still upset that Pavs wouldn't let him use Windows 95). He didn't seem to even really recognize that Apple existed, outside of being the strange ultra-modern thing that Timo was obsessed with. And seeing as Joe hated anything that could be called modern, and also enjoyed liking things that Timo would find abhorrent, Martin thought for sure that Joe would fully convert to his side one day.

So it made absolutely zero sense when Joe showed up to work one day, frowning down at an iPhone 5S and stabbing at it with one finger.

At first, Martin didn't actually believe what he was seeing. "Where did you get that? Did you find it somewhere?"

Joe had the type of disappointed hangdog look that he usually only wore when he finally had to admit that an item he was trying to fix was just beyond repair.

Oh.

Oh no.

"It's mine." Joe heaved a sigh, looking exhausted just for having said it.

"But – but an _iPhone_?"

There was a loud _bang_ from Timo's desk as he stood up fast enough that his rolling chair went skidding across the cramped workspace.

"An iPhone?" he repeated with considerably more enthusiasm. "Jumbo has an iPhone?"

This was probably the first time that Martin could sincerely say that Timo actually sounded _breathless_ with excitement.

Martin felt a little mournful, imagining the future gloating. Imagining what could have been. This sucked already.

The rest of their coworkers had started paying attention, mostly out of sheer surprise. Which would make sense, because Joe had always proudly stated that he would keep using his flip phone until they physically took it away from him.

(Timo had tried that once. Marc had found it and given it back to Joe. When Timo complained, Marc told him to stop trying to make his boss sad.)

"Dude." Burnsie patted Joe on the shoulder, shaking his head sadly. "What happened?"

Joe sighed again, even more miserable than the first time.

"My phone carrier said they were no longer going to support that model of phone." God, if that man cried over his FlipShot Martin was gong to lose it. "They told me that I had to switch, and all they're offering are smartphones. Supposedly this is the most basic one, and they said they'd cut me a discount because they were forcing me to get a new phone and I've never gotten a new one even though the contact allows it. So..."

He held the phone up like he didn't quite know what to do with it.

"I have this now. The guy at the store showed me how to get the email on it, but my hands are too big for the tiny keyboard. I keep spelling things wrong because I'm touching too many letters at once. And it keeps changing what I'm writing!"

Joe actually looked upset about all of this. Martin almost felt sad for him.

Then he remembered the FlipShot and felt less sad. That was _not_ a real camera.

Timo was fluttering around at Joe's elbow, clearly oblivious to his grief, or quite possibly just not giving a shit.

"5S? A bit old but I'd expect nothing less from you. Now you'll actually have internet-"

"My old phone had the internet!" Joe protested, even though he never used it because even Joe knew how shitty internet was on a flip phone. Also, because it was Joe, and he consistently referred to email as "the email" every. Single. Time.

"-and you'll be able to download apps, and record videos, and – God, I can't even name all the services you'll be able to use because it's pretty much literally all of them. Your phone was so shitty."

It was like Timo had stabbed Joe in the heart when he was already bleeding.

"It was a good phone," he said, slumping into a chair. God, now Martin really did feel bad. "It still works! I can't believe they won't let me use it."

"Hey." Burnsie rubbed Joe's shoulders in that weird handsy homo-but-no-homo way that those two had about each other.

(Martin tended to be more full-homo, but he also didn't offer shoulder massages to his coworkers.)

"It's not so bad!" Burnsie said, giving Joe's shoulders a shake. Joe just went with it like the sad sack he was. "I can show you how to use your phone!"

"No!" Timo shouted. "No, you fucking well will not! We are teaching good habits, you keep your dinosaur away from him!"

Apparently now that Joe's flip phone was officially gone, Timo was able to transition his irritation fully onto the other source of his ire: Burnsie's phone.

Timo's relationship with Burnsie's phone was one of Martin's favorite things, because Timo treated it like a loved one that had come back from the dead as a zombie and now had to be put down with prejudice: you used to love it, but now it had to be destroyed.

Burnsie had an iPhone 1. Like, the original iPhone, back before they numbered them so they could only call it 1 in retrospect. (Timo called it the _2G_ because he was too much of a purist not to.)

Nobody knew how it was still functioning. By all rights it shouldn't have. Even Timo couldn't service something like that. Phone carriers shouldn't have supported it.

It was an anomaly of progress, and yet Burnsie's shitty old phone just kept on trucking, wrapped in a scuffed up old case that Martin was pretty sure he'd crafted himself from camouflage print duct tape.

Watching Timo froth at the mouth over it was truly one of Martin's greatest joys in life.

"Why not?" Burnsie frowned. He never could understand why Timo hated his phone so much. "It's got apps too, I can show him how to use them."

He turned to Joe and added, "You have to actually close the apps when you're done with them, or it takes up more battery life."

Joe blinked at him. "You don't mean appetizers, right?"

Martin let himself laugh at that one, because it was an iPhone, and therefore not his problem.

Sometimes when things didn't go your way, you just wanted to watch the world burn. Silver linings and all that.

Timo was apparently choosing not to deign that question with a response. Instead he told Burnsie, "Your phone hasn't had a new iOS update since 2010. It won't function at all like a new 5S."

Burnsie and Joe both stared at him and then asked together, "What's iOS?"

Recalling the noise that Timo made would bring Martin joy for weeks. He just wished he'd thought to record it for posterity's sake.

"It just has so many buttons," Joe was saying. "I don't need that many buttons. I just need buttons for the phone, the texting, and the email. And I guess the internet, but I have a computer for that."

"You know," Martin commented, just to stir the pot, "If you'd gotten a Samsung, I could have set it up on Easy Mode for you. That pares everything down to just the essentials."

"No!" Timo shoved a finger in Martin's face, and frankly Martin was surprised it wasn't the middle one. "You had your chance. You lost."

Martin smiled sweetly. "What are you going to do, make the text larger?"

Timo's eyes narrowed to slits.

"You know he wants that."

"He does, but it's still not the same as decluttering the whole system."

Timo took a step closer, looking moments away from trying to deck him. God, this was the most fun he'd had all week.

"I'll just hide the other apps in a folder," Timo hissed. "And delete the ones he won't need."

"You think he'll use apps?" Martin laughed just once, shaking his head. "He'll never use apps. He'll be too afraid of making accidental purchases in the App Store."

Timo scoffed and rolled his eyes dramatically. "Of course he'll use apps, everyone uses apps."

Joe held up a hand. "Wait, nobody ever told me, apps _doesn't_ mean appetizers, right?"

"Nah," Burnsie said, "I think it means appliance. Because the phone is like an appliance, right?"

The sound that Timo made was disbelieving, miserable, and glorious.

Martin laughed the laugh of someone who had lost the battle, but gone on to win the war.

He should do something to thank Joe for this. Maybe he'd ask him a question about CB radio crystals.

In front of Timo. So that Timo had to listen to it.

Martin never claimed to be a good man, but all was fair in...well, it was just war, really.

And he was winning. That was all that really mattered.


	16. I'mma Set It Straight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate POV to What You See, You Might Not Get. Title also pulled from "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. All the usual warnings that this is largely unedited and written while I was mostly unconscious.
> 
> 2/19/19

Until the day he died, PK would never forgive himself for not figuring it out until they were on the plane. It haunted him for years even after Carey was back safe in his arms, thoughts of what could have been, if only he’d stopped thinking about himself for long enough to look around him at the arena, on the bus, at the airport.

He’d trusted in the steady familiarity of routine, and it had taken away the best thing that ever happened to him.

It was late by the time they got on the plane, just past midnight when they’d all lost the high of an overtime win and remembered just how miserably tired they were. Everyone passed out pretty quickly, until PK was one of the last ones still awake.

Getting ready to follow after, PK had first opened a new WhatsApp message to his favorite contact: CA$H MONEY <3.

 _Goodnight_ , he’d sent, with what were hopefully enough embarrassing kissing emojis to make Carey blush even just a little. God, he wished he could see it, but there were pretty clear expectations about where everyone should be sitting on a plane, so Carey was up front with the rest of the staff while PK was trapped in the back without his favorite cuddle buddy, surrounded by snoring teammates.

He waited for Carey’s reply; Carey always messaged him goodnight before he went to sleep if they couldn’t be sharing a bed. It was part of their routine, enough that he knew that PK wouldn’t sleep well without it.

A minute passed. Two.

PK shifted in his seat, telling himself it was just to get comfortable even as he craned his neck towards the front of the plane, trying to spot Carey’s thick dark hair amidst the sea of bald patches.

When Carey wasn’t readily visible, PK frowned and sent another message.

_Babe, where are you sitting?_

No response.

Maybe he’d already fallen asleep? But that was weird for Carey; even at his most exhausted he couldn’t fall asleep unless he consciously tried to settle down for the night. He wasn’t the type to pass out without following his routine.

It was only twenty minutes into the flight, but PK decided it was worth it to stretch his legs and go see what was happening at the front of the plane.

The staff appeared just as tired as the team, which wasn’t surprising seeing as they’d not only had to prep for today’s game, but they’d then had to quickly pack what they needed and get it all ready to take to Colorado all in preparation for another game in less than twenty-four hours. The pace was grueling, and PK appreciated all the work they put in to keep the team going.

He’d appreciate it a lot more if he could find his favorite assistant athletic trainer.

All of the usual suspects were there, except for Carey. When PK got to Carey’s usual seat in the third row - left side, window seat - it was empty, save for the backpack that PK knew belonged to Paul, the trainer in the next seat.

Frowning and wondering if he was more tired than he thought, PK asked, “Uh…do you know where Carey is?”

He looked around again like Carey might magically appear where he hadn’t been before if he looked hard enough. Carey still wasn’t there.

Paul shrugged, expression contorting into something concerned and uncomfortable. “He’s not here.”

At first PK thought it was a joke. He’d almost laughed. “Well yeah, clearly. But like, where’s he sitting? Did he move?”

When Paul only shrugged again, what was left of PK’s smile slid from his face.

“I’m sorry, man, I don’t know. He’s not on the plane. We were told something came up and he wasn’t coming.”

The air on the plane was dry, that sort of recycled cool that always smelled vaguely of plastic. That was one of the things that PK could never forget about that moment when it became crystallized in his mind.

“What happened?” His brain ran into overdrive, considering and tossing out possibilities one after another. He wanted to check his phone again, even though he knew he hadn’t missed any calls or texts before takeoff, and besides, the plane had wifi, so Carey still should have been able to message him if something happened.

Was he ill? But Paul would have said if Carey was ill, if he knew. Was it his family? But then why wouldn’t he have told PK? Carey was always honest; he wouldn’t hide something from PK just to keep him from getting too stressed out before a game, he knew that PK would want to know something like that.

Paul’s grimace was uncomfortable, maybe a little helpless.

“Nobody’s said. Just that Carey wasn’t coming on this trip.”

Somebody here had to know. That was all PK could think as he stumbled numbly back to his seat. Something had happened to Carey, and somebody here knew what it was, and PK had no right to demand answers of management without outing their relationship – something he and Carey had sworn they would only do if they both agreed to it.

And Carey wasn’t here to agree to it.

The rest of the trip was a blur of sweaty palms and restless legs and unblinking stares at the black sky outside. PK would be exhausted for the game tomorrow night – tonight? – but there was no way he could sleep. Not until he heard from Carey.

When the plane touched down, PK didn’t have any messages or calls from Carey. When he called, it went immediately to voicemail. His texts went unanswered.

PK was a passionate guy. He played with his heart. He was used to feeling elation and disappointment, anger and shame.

He wasn’t used to feeling scared, but early in that Denver morning, fear became his close companion.

The next day, Gally asked where Carey was, and management said he stayed home with a stomach virus. PK knew they were lying before the words left their mouths.

Carey still hadn’t answered him.

Two days later, the Canadiens came back to Montreal. The first place PK went was Carey’s apartment, the one he kept for appearances but barely used anymore because half of his things were at PK’s place anyway.

PK had never really known what it meant to feel like his heart dropped until he opened the door and found that the apartment was empty, stripped to the furniture it came with.

He didn’t know what he was expecting when he went to his own apartment. At first glance everything looked normal – Carey’s hoodie hanging on the peg by the door, Carey’s favorite mug on the drying rack next to the sink, his books on the shelf next to PK’s videogames.

And then PK’s eyes locked onto the gaps, the absences: Carey’s shoes and boots missing from the rack next to the door, his spare phone charger gone from the living room. His clothes missing from the dresser, from the bedroom closet. The photos of his family missing from their bedroom.

The keys that PK had given Carey for his apartment were sitting on the nightstand, innocent and damning.

Two days later, PK fell to his knees and started to cry.

Carey still hadn’t answered him.

Three days later, Carey texted back.

_We can’t be together anymore. This just isn’t working out. It was a dangerous idea from the start. You deserve the best of everything, and I’m not it. I’m sorry._

Three days later, PK swore that he could hear his own heart break.

Four days later, management said that Carey had decided to pursue other opportunities and left the team. They only announced that much because PK hadn’t stopped asking where he was. He swore there was something different in their eyes when they looked at him now.

Carey never texted back again.

~~~

Carey became the ghost hovering over PK’s shoulder, always just out of reach, reminding him of what he was missing. He was a ghost to the team, there and gone, treated as if he’d never existed to start with. Once in a very long while, someone would bring him up in that offhand way, maybe forgetful – “My knee’s acting up, maybe I should have Carey take a look at it” – maybe wistful – “Ugh, Carey was always better at this.”

But then they moved on, because they accepted that Carey was gone, easy as you please. Like Carey was the type of person to leave suddenly after a preseason game without a word of notice or a single goodbye to the team he loved, the team he’d worked so hard to earn a place with.

PK couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept any of it.

He felt like he was going insane, like he was the only one who could see how clearly _wrong_ this all was.

“Maybe he just couldn’t deal with the travel anymore?” Patches had offered with a shrug.

PK had never wanted to punch one of his own teammates so badly before.

It wasn’t their faults for not knowing Carey as well as he did, but it felt so impossible to look at the situation and see anything other than glaring red flags.

Carey disappeared from Montreal within _two days_ of the Habs being on a road trip, a road trip that he had disappeared from even though he’d packed his bags alongside PK in preparation for that exact trip. He left half of his things at PK’s place in Montreal, like he’d been trying to leave so quickly that he hadn’t had the time to pack it all and could only take essentials.

He vanished like he was running from something, like he was scared to be caught.

The part that PK couldn’t tell anybody was that he _knew_ that Carey wouldn’t have left unless he felt like something was forcing him, because he couldn’t tell anybody about their relationship. Not without Carey’s permission.

But that meant he couldn’t tell them that he and Carey were open books to each other, that they discussed everything. He couldn’t tell them that the morning of the day he disappeared, Carey was talking about wanting to try a new Indian place together on their next off-day. He couldn’t tell them that Carey said this while pressing kisses to PK’s shoulder in the bed they shared. He couldn’t tell them that he and Carey had been _happy_ together, and in love, and that Carey never would have abandoned him like this unless he thought it was for the best – unless he thought he was _protecting_ PK from something.

He couldn’t tell them about the text that Carey sent him, how he read it over and over until the words were engraved in his mind, analyzing them and turning them over and tearing them apart trying to understand where they had come from and what they could mean. It was like there was a secret message in there and if only he could decode it, he could figure out where Carey had gone and how PK could get him back.

Days slipped past without another word from Carey, and the world moved on, but PK stayed frozen on his couch reading Carey’s text, in his bedroom finding Carey’s things gone, in Carey’s apartment looking at empty shelves and a bed without sheets, in the dry air of the plane, wondering where his boyfriend had gone.

A tragedy had occurred, and he was the only one who could see it.

~~~

But maybe there were a few people who could see it.

In the days and weeks and months of his life without Carey, PK called Carey’s family.

And he called, and he called.

At first they were reticent, clearly scared but tight-lipped. They thought something was wrong too, but they didn’t seem to want to tell PK.

They would tell him that they had heard from Carey. That he said he was okay, but no, he wouldn’t tell them where he was either. Yes, it was still the same phone number. No, they hadn’t seen him in person since he visited over the summer.

They told him not to hire a private investigator like he’d suggested when he started to get truly desperate, and that he couldn’t file a missing person’s case with the police if they had heard Carey tell them he was fine.

“If he wanted to be found, he would tell us where he was,” Carey’s father said gruffly. “As long as he keeps calling, we’re going to respect his wishes.”

PK was all about respecting Carey’s wishes, except for when he had this horrible sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that Carey wasn’t acting on his own wishes. His mind ran away with him, thinking of who could have been influencing Carey, who could have taken him, what they had threatened him with. The possibilities were endless, and the lack of information only gave his brain more opportunity to fill in the blanks with darker and darker thoughts.

He got used to the dark thoughts, or maybe they got used to him. Some days, they were the only ones willing to provide PK with answers.

But he didn’t even need answers. He just needed Carey.

It was almost Christmas when PK finally, well and truly broke down. He wasn’t expecting it; he’d been doing well, all things considered, not letting his play slump and putting up a good front for the team.

One moment, he was buying his plane ticket from Montreal to Toronto to see his family for Christmas, and the next he couldn’t see through the tears blurring his vision and he couldn’t breathe with how hard he was sobbing because Carey was supposed to come home with him this Christmas. They had agreed they were going to meet each other’s parents properly, as a couple, and PK had been so in love with the idea of seeing Carey sitting at his parents’ dining room table, of watching him play with his nieces and nephews, of seeing all of his family together for the first time.

PK had been so in love with _Carey_ , and he still was, and his heart physically _hurt_ with how much he missed Carey. The fear was an ever-present weight digging into his chest, pressing him down and reminding him that Carey was gone, gone, _gone_ and nobody knew where he was and he wouldn’t answer PK’s phone calls but he would talk to his parents, so clearly he didn’t want to talk to _PK_ and what had gone wrong? What had he done? He thought about their last days together over and over, wracking his brain for the signs he’d missed, the cues he hadn’t seen that would have let him know that something was amiss, that Carey needed his help. He read Carey’s final message to him like it was a sacred text that could be deciphered if only he read it again, one more time, just once and then it would all be clear, and then he read their earlier messages, equal parts reverence and sleuthing, sure there had to be a clue there as to what had changed.

He was sick with guilt and sick with hurt and sick with loss and just plain _sick_ , and that was when he called Carey’s family in tears and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I miss him so much, and I’m so scared for him.”

And that was the first time someone in Carey’s family – his sister, the one who trusted PK the least – finally opened up and said, “I know. I’m sorry. I miss him too. I would tell you if I knew more.”

But nobody knew more. Carey was gone, and something made him want to stay gone, and PK was left alone in the shattered remains of their relationship, desperately trying to piece together enough to bring Carey back and only making himself bleed in the process.

~~~

PK didn’t have Carey’s blessing to tell his own family about their relationship, but his mother took one look at him and knew that something was horribly wrong. He broke down in her arms, and he decided that Carey would forgive him this one transgression.

At first his family was worried for him, was just as scared and confused as PK was. And then, as weeks slipped into months slipped into years that hurt turned into resignation turned into anger.

“He should know what he’s doing to you,” his sister fumed.

“You deserve better than this,” his father said.

“I know you love him, but…he’s gone, PK,” Malcolm told him.

And PK couldn’t even be mad at them, because of course they didn’t understand. They loved PK, but they didn’t even know Carey. They didn’t love Carey the way he did. They couldn’t understand how out of character this was for Carey, what a sign it was that something was horribly, incredibly wrong.

Nobody understood that but PK, and Carey’s family.

He tried to call at least once a month. Sometimes to check in, just to see if Carey had spoken to them recently, if he’d told them anything new, if he was still doing okay wherever he was.

Sometimes he called just to speak to other people who understood what he was going through, because he felt like he was the last person in the world who could still see the ghost of Carey Price.

~~~

PK’s heart stayed in one place, but his team and his career and his life moved on.

“You just need to put yourself out there again,” Gally said at a club one night after a win, talking like he didn’t make an ass of himself every time he “put himself out there.” PK’s teammates still didn’t know that he’d been in a relationship with Carey, but they were under the impression that he’d been broken up with and was still struggling with the loss.

It was the closest he could get to the truth without revealing what had actually happened – or at least what he knew of what had happened – and it burned every time he heard them talk about his relationship like a bad breakup.

The first time someone had said, “Hey man, you’re better off without her,” PK had gotten up and left the room entirely.

He might not have Carey anymore, and part of him was slowly, painstakingly coming around to that realization, but there was no way he would ever believe that he was better off without Carey.

But Carey was gone, and he had been for well over a year now, and after the boys kept plying him with drinks, PK was lonely enough and drunk enough to let the boys spin him around and shove him in the direction of the first pretty girl they saw.

She was gorgeous, blonde straight hair and big blue eyes, dainty and petite with curves that wouldn’t quit and a tight blue dress that showcased all of them. In his pre-Carey life, PK would have been buying her a drink in a hot second.

Now he felt like he was going through the motions, even as he smiled and cracked jokes and let her take him home with her.

PK had never been the type to slip out in the middle of the night without even a word goodbye, but he did it that night. She really had been lovely, and he didn’t want her to see it when he got home and collapsed in a blubbering mess over his toilet, telling himself he was vomiting because he drank too much a few hours ago and not because he felt like he’d just cheated on the love of his life.

It felt like Carey would know, no matter where he was, like he’d be able to sense PK’s transgression and then he would think that PK didn’t love him anymore and he would never come home. He knew it wasn’t possible, but his brain couldn’t explain that logic to his heart as it broke all over again.

PK didn’t pick up girls too much after that. And he certainly didn’t pick up men.

~~~

He couldn’t say that the trade was a stab in the back, because a part of him saw it coming. It was a blow to the chest, full-force, and the Montreal Canadiens looked him in the eyes as they did it.

There were bittersweet feelings on both sides of the trade, but PK had always been one to roll with whatever punches life threw his way, and so he took the trade with as much grace and aplomb as he could.

Besides, Nashville was a pretty kickass city to get traded to, even if Shea Weber left some pretty big shoes to fill.

A trade in the offseason meant he had time to get acclimated to the idea, settle up things in Montreal and make a clean move down to Nashville. And that also meant shopping for a new home.

The idea of house hunting was fun, until suddenly it wasn’t.

Because it was as PK was packing up his apartment in Montreal that he uncovered a box of Carey’s things in his closet.

He had many boxes like that, things Carey left behind and the things he couldn’t stop himself from buying for Carey, a cowboy hat in Texas and a mystery novel from an airport in Minnesota and a t-shirt from the Calgary Stampede, all things that reminded him of Carey and that he wanted Carey to have, even if he couldn’t give them to him.

Logic said that there was no use in holding onto these things. It had been nearly two years since Carey had left, and Carey’s text had said that he was ending their relationship. Logic had won out in the past, when PK finally brought himself to start putting away some of Carey’s belongings that had been left around the apartment: some forgotten clothes, his books, his skates.

Logic said he should donate the boxes to charity and be done with them. Make this trade to Nashville a clean break.

PK’s heart screamed at the idea of giving away Carey’s things, of _throwing Carey away_ like he’d meant nothing. Because what would happen if Carey came back one day and he realized what PK had done? What if he’d been suffering and alone this whole time, and he came back to find that PK had thrown him out? What if he thought that PK got rid of his things because he didn’t want Carey anymore?

The only thing worse than being haunted by the ghost of Carey Price was imagining a life not being haunted by him.

And then PK had the sickening realization that it wouldn’t matter if he kept Carey’s things, because he was moving to Nashville, and Carey would have no way of finding him. Sure, anyone with google could tell that PK was playing in Nashville, but that wouldn’t mean that Carey would know where PK lived.

In Montreal, there had always been the chance, however small, that Carey would come home. That one day he would be there knocking on the door, and when PK opened it he would be shifting from foot to foot all awkwardly, and PK would smile and open the door wider and say, “You forgot your keys, babe.” And Carey would smile, that little smirky half-smile that started in his eyes before it spread to his lips, and PK would kiss that smile right off of him and draw him inside, bring him home.

But now PK was leaving that home, and with it he was taking any possible chance that Carey might come back to him one day. Even if Carey wanted to find him in Nashville, he wouldn’t know how.

He wouldn’t feel welcome.

The thought turned his stomach.

And so PK set the boxes of Carey’s things right next to all of the rest of his belongings, ready to be taken down to Nashville, and then he set about buying a house.

He couldn’t say that Carey wasn’t on his mind when he was house hunting. Not to say that Carey wasn’t always on his mind, but he was more than usual as PK’s realtor started asking him what he was looking for.

PK had never owned a house before, but when he’d imagined owning one, it had always been with Carey by his side. Because Carey Price was the kind of guy who made you want to settle down and buy some property and make a real home of it. Carey Price was the kind of guy that you held on to forever.

Even when he was gone.

PK had no true preferences for his house, but he remembered Carey’s. Carey had always been a little particular about it, even if he’d fervently deny it and roll his eyes at the idea. PK hadn’t forgotten his thing about big wrap-around porches, or how he liked the idea of having land like his parents did, spread out enough that you didn’t have your neighbors living right on top of you like in the city. He liked breakfast nooks that got morning sunlight, and bay windows facing west to catch the sunset. He liked decorative shutters and hardwood floors and enough bedrooms to have family come visit.

It wasn’t incorrect to say that when PK bought a home for himself, he was really buying a home for Carey. But then again, to him, those places would always be one and the same.

The time between choosing a house and moving his things down to Nashville and getting settled in was surprisingly brief, or maybe it felt that way in the flurry of other things PK had to do that summer. But there was one thing of utmost importance that he absolutely had to do before he could make himself content in Nashville.

He had to make sure that Carey would know where to find him in Nashville. He had to make sure that Carey knew where his house was, just in case he wanted to come home.

“Hi,” he said, as soon as Carey’s mom picked up the phone. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

~~~

PK loved his new teammates. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected to get along with them, but it was still always a pleasant surprise to walk into a room of mostly new faces and be welcomed with open arms.

Rich Clune had welcomed PK to the team pretty much as soon as news of the trade came through. And upon his first trip to Nashville that July, mostly to introduce himself to management, do a little PR, and scope out real estate, PK had been introduced to what was apparently an institution of the Nashville Predators: Herb’s Electronics, the inappropriately-named coffee shop and bakery owned by Rich Clune’s boyfriend.

And hadn’t that been a revelation and a half, coming from a franchise where management acted like gay people were made up to one where everyone seemed fairly comfortable with one of their players openly dating a guy, to the point where half the team regularly frequented his boyfriend’s store.

“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” Rich had asked on the way over. His face was a sort of fixed casual, but his eyes were hard and stern, and PK had no doubts that Rich was fully willing to throw down in the middle of the street if PK had a bad word to say about his relationship.

PK had just smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Dude, I’m bi. And good for you, man.”

He’d still never managed to get a brighter smile out of Cluner than he did in that moment.

Herb’s Electronics was, to put it nicely, an experience. PK had seen his share of independent coffee shops before, and he’d probably been in fewer bakeries, but Herb’s was the first place that made him smile just coming through the door.

Maybe it was the way the baked goods were displayed, visually impeccable in the large glass-front display case, each with little handwritten cards in front of them labeling the item and its price. Maybe it was the chalkboard menu on the wall, where someone had been crossing out their writing mistakes instead of just erasing them. It could have been the awful grainy Employee of the Month photo, next to an equally grainy photo of a dog with a big heart drawn around it. Or it could have been the hodge-podge of mismatched armchairs and the display cakes set out on every available windowsill and counter.

At least at first, it was definitely the plaque on the wall with a photo of Cluner’s boyfriend on it, calling him the All-Time Worst Employee.

PK loved the feeling of Herb’s Electronics. He loved the environment, he loved the baked goods, and he loved the people.

Rumor had it that he could possibly learn to love the coffee too, but only if it was made for him by the elusive “Scary,” the morning barista who never happened to be around when PK came in during the mornings. Supposedly, while Cluner’s boyfriend James made coffee that would make you swear off coffee for the rest of your life, and Kuzya, the Russian kid in the afternoons kept trying to make them all drink lattes with Caps logos in the foam no matter what they’d actually ordered, it was Scary who actually made coffee that kept people coming back for more.

And he always disappeared just as PK was coming into the store.

Anyone would say that PK was a pretty confident guy, but it was enough to given him a bit of a complex after it happened a few times.

He straight up asked James at one point if this Scary guy was avoiding him. It seemed weird, seeing as this guy supposedly had this constitution of steel and had Fifi and some of the other young guys terrified of him. He didn’t sound like the sort of guy who was bothered by anything.

But PK could put two and two together and make four, and he knew when someone was clearly avoiding him.

James’s increasingly strange responses were a pretty clear cover-up, and maybe PK would have been a little offended if it weren’t for the fact that everyone he met at Herb’s was genuinely friendly with him.

Except for this Scary guy who PK never got to meet.

It became something of a game to him, trying to meet this guy just because he seemed to be trying to keep PK from meeting him. He thought about maybe sending a signed t-shirt or hat over to the shop for him, setting it up as a joke that maybe this guy was such a big fan he was too afraid to meet PK.

But PK also didn’t have that much to do during his free time, seeing as the only people he knew in town were his teammates, and so maybe he made it a habit of trying to show up just when Scary’s shift should be letting out. He was always mysteriously gone, even if PK intentionally showed up a few minutes early, knowing by then that Kuzya wouldn’t be in yet.

Scary appeared to exist in a constant state of just having left for the day.

(Just the once, for shits and giggles, PK had tried waiting out behind the building to see if Scary was escaping that way. He’d scared the crap out of the huge guy who did some of the baking when he came to take the trash out, but he still hadn’t managed to see Scary.)

PK’s teammates decided that he needed more hobbies than harassing baristas, even if Rich did grumble something about “having a talk with Nealer.” And it was in their wisdom that his teammates decided that they were going to set him up on a date.

He’d been ready to protest it. For one, he’d never needed help getting a date in his life. And for another, he wasn’t sure if he felt ready to properly date. It may have been two years since Carey disappeared, but PK could still count on one hand how many times he’d actually hooked up with someone since then, and each time he had to deal with all sorts of mixed feelings of guilt and shame and questioning what Carey would think. Even though he knew that Carey would want him to be happy and move on, he also couldn’t feel comfortable truly being with someone else knowing that Carey was out there somewhere, maybe scared, maybe alone, maybe missing him.

There was a part of PK that said that he could never truly move on until he laid eyes on Carey and made sure that he was happy and safe. And then there was another part of PK, a part that sounded suspiciously like Carey’s painfully reasonable voice, that told him that Carey would hate for him to be sad and lonely, that Carey would encourage him to see someone new.

PK leaned heavily into that part of himself and let his teammates set him up with someone.

He wasn’t quite sure whose wife was friends with Elena, but he should thank her, because Elena was kind of too good to be true. She was ridiculously pretty, in a way that also qualified as way too cute. She had beautiful red curls and a smattering of freckles on a button nose. She was slender and small, but she had this sort of look to her eyes that made PK think that people underestimated her often based on her looks.

And then she started talking, and he knew that they definitely underestimated her. She was extremely smart, for one, and she didn’t get nearly enough credit for the mental fortitude it took to wrangle a classroom full of six year olds. Elena was funny, too, in a sly sort of way where it took you a few seconds to run back her words and realize she was teasing you.

Or maybe that was just PK. He got caught up in her eyes a lot. She had really beautiful eyes.

Things clicked with Elena, or maybe she was just easy to date, because she made the whole dating-again-after-Carey thing feel like it wasn’t so awful after all.

He wasn’t removing Carey from his life. PK had a lot of wars with himself over what it meant to be dating someone new while still loving Carey. He’d finally come to the conclusion that he would probably never stop loving Carey, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t love someone else too, while keeping Carey a part of his life.

So he still had pictures of Carey in his house, and he still bought souvenirs for Carey and tucked them into boxes in his closet. He also celebrated Thanksgiving with some of the other Canadian guys, and Elena brought sweet potato casserole, because she had the day off work for Columbus Day.

PK was blending his past and his present, and it was working out okay.

Until the letter came.

It arrived not long after Halloween. PK didn’t realize what it was at first, picking it up with the bundle of mail that had been piling up in his mailbox while the Preds were on a road trip.

He was sorting through piles of junk mail and sale ads when the envelope slipped to the floor. Automatically he bent down to pick it up, pausing only when he flipped it over and realized that the address was actually handwritten. He couldn’t remember the last time he received mail addressed by hand.

And then he had to sit down right there on his kitchen floor, because the postmark was Canadian, and the address was written in a narrow, slanting scrawl that was tattooed across PK’s heart.

Carey’s ghost wasn’t hovering over PK’s shoulder anymore, because now he was sending PK mail.

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, in his head, in the tips of his fingers, making his hands tremble as he clumsily tore the envelope open. A distant part of his brain wished he’d been more careful, told he him should have treated this with the same reverence and care that he did every other relic of Carey, except this was _new_ and Carey was reaching out to him, Carey was communicating with him for the first time in two years.

The relief tasted salty, or maybe that was just his tears, blurring his vision before he even had the paper unfolded. It was two pages, full of straight, even lines of that handwriting PK was used to seeing on the calendar on his fridge, on post-it notes on his nightstand, and it was so clearly Carey that PK had to take a moment to compose himself before he started reading, lest he smudge the ink.

It was all for naught, because he couldn’t make it past the first line before the tears were flowing too quickly to staunch.

_PK,_

_I know I’m two years too late saying this. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to find the right words to explain everything that happened. I know you’re angry with me, and that’s okay. I deserve it. I’m angry with me too._

_I want you to know that I’m okay. That’s the most important thing. I’ve always been okay. The only things I was ever in danger from were my own bad decisions. I heard you’ve been worried for me. You’ll never know how sorry I am for that._

_I’m writing to you because you deserve to know the real story of what happened. You deserve to know why I left. I’m not trying to ask for your forgiveness, because I know I’ll never deserve it. But I’ve talked to my parents. I think you might be looking for closure so that you can move on. You deserve that._

_I didn’t want to leave you in Montreal. I never wanted to leave you. The Canadiens management found out about us - I don’t know how, but they had pictures. They said they wanted me gone. I was ready to quit - you were always more important than my job. But then they threatened your career if I didn’t leave town. They said that they’d send you down to the AHL and ruin your career. It sounds more far-fetched now that I’m writing it out, but at the time I was scared. I’d never want your career to be damaged because of me._

_They had me sign a non-disclosure agreement the night of that game against the Avs, and I went home and packed my things and I left._

_I’m not going to say where I’ve been. That doesn’t matter, and I don’t want you to come looking for me. I want you to be able to put me in your past where I belong and move on. (No, I’m not in BC. I asked my sister to mail this for me.)_

_I’ve heard how well you’re doing in Nashville, and I’m so proud of you. I know you’re going to keep doing amazing things. I’ve heard that you’re in a new relationship now, and I want you to know that I’m so happy for you. I hope she can give you all of the things I never could. I hope she makes you happy._

_All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. And part of letting you be happy means that you have to let me go. I have to let go too. And so I want you to know that I am safe, and I am doing well. I don’t want you to worry about me and I don’t want you to look for me. I just want you to move on, and be happy._

_I love you, and I always will. But you deserve someone who deserves your love._

_\- Carey_

Elena found him like that, sitting on the floor with tears rolling down his face, clutching the letter to his chest like it might dissolve into another dream if he didn’t hold on tight. PK had entirely forgotten that she was going to come over after work, and he’d been absorbed enough in the letter that he hadn’t even heard her knock.

She didn’t know about Carey. Or rather, she didn’t know the full story. She knew that PK had a good friend, a best friend, named Carey, one who used to work for the Habs before he suddenly disappeared. She knew that PK hadn’t heard from Carey in two years, and that he worried over him constantly.

It was hard for her not to know those things, when PK’s house was covered in photos of himself and Carey together, when PK had boxes in his closets marked “Carey” and he peppered every conversation with, “This one time me and Pricey…”

But when Elena sat on the floor next to him and wrapped her small arm over his shoulder, he let her tug the letter from his hands. He wiped at his eyes and tried to calm his breathing while she read it over.

The world felt unreal, dreamlike even as Elena’s presence against his side kept him grounded in reality. He knew what she was going to find. He knew that it could quite possibly be the end of their relationship.

He also knew that Carey thought that PK had moved on. Carey knew he’d been seeing someone else, and now Carey was writing him a letter telling him that he was never coming back and PK should be happy with his permanently Carey-less life. It was all of his worst nightmares come true: Carey thought that PK didn’t love him anymore, and now he was never going to come home.

PK thought he probably would have been sick, if he’d felt like his body could move at all.

He didn’t even startle when Elena laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.

“You were in love,” she said softly, her accent tingeing her vowels. “Or…maybe you still are.”

PK’s laugh was watery. He thought it sounded a little like choking. “I don’t think I could ever stop loving him. It’s like breathing. I need to love him. I need…”

Elena sighed again, petting his shoulder.

“You need him. I know. I think I kind of always knew, but without the full story I could tell myself that I didn’t.”

He couldn’t hold back his wince, the rush of guilt. “It’s not…I really do like you.”

But Elena just laughed, squeezing him closer in that one-armed hug. “I know you do. I really like you too. But we haven’t been seeing each other for that long, and just in that time alone I’ve heard enough about Carey to write a book. And no matter how much we like each other, I don’t think we’re ever gonna match this.”

She gently tapped the pages of the letter against PK’s knee.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely, scrubbing a hand over his eyes again.

Elena hummed and laid her head against his shoulder again.

“Me too. But it’s okay. I promise I can be a big girl about it.” She held her fist out in front of him, an offering. “Friends?”

God, if the circumstances were different, he really could have seen himself marrying a girl like her.

He bumped his fist against hers, stumbling through another watery laugh. “Friends.”

It wasn’t, he decided, the worst break-up he’d ever had. For one, it was definitely the most amicable. For another, Elena hadn’t been apparently run out of town by his employers trying to control his romantic life and manipulate his career, so there was always that.

He had no clue where to begin with that. It was so much to take in with such little time. Carey wrote about it like it wasn’t a bombshell on his life, making PK reassess every step of his career – but then again, that was the way Carey did everything, calm and casual like he wasn’t talking about the world falling apart.

Whatever Carey had signed, there was no way that it was legal or enforceable. PK could only imagine the carnage if he went public with this – but he couldn’t do that. Not without Carey’s permission.

That was what his mom told him when he read the letter to her. “You always told us you could not talk about your relationship without his agreement. You can’t go back on that now.”

She had a point, a good one, even though everything in PK wanted to rage against the Canadiens, against the league that spoke of tolerance while quietly promoting players staying closeted. No team had wanted to be the first to deal with the hassle of a publicly out player, and the players suffered for it.

But Carey was a private guy, and he would hate the story going to press. He’d hate it even more if PK took to social media to try to find him; PK could imagine it now, Carey feeling watched and hunted. Carey always hated being the focus of attention, just as much as he hated strangers knowing about his life.

And so PK had to keep the story to himself.

Well. For a given degree of “to himself.”

They had never come out to the team in Montreal, which was fitting seeing as management at least was clearly against their relationship. But Nashville already had a gay player who was quietly but publicly dating a man, and the team didn’t seem to have an issue with it. And PK was a little too amped up to keep it to himself.

His teammates’ outrage on his behalf was both validating and a solid bonding experience, even if they couldn’t direct it anywhere. But it was heartening, how many guys offered to talk to You Can Play or the NHLPA on his behalf, or offered up increasingly absurd but heartfelt ideas on how they could track Carey down.

As much as PK wanted to find him, he still wanted to respect Carey’s wishes. He wouldn’t hunt Carey down. All he could do was hope that Carey would realize that PK was available and was waiting for him to come home.

It was a return to the status quo of the past two years, and yet it felt like it came with so much more urgency now that something had finally happened.

But life kept rolling on. The Preds kept playing games, PK kept playing hockey, and now that he and Elena had agreed to only hang out as “just friends,” he was back to having too much free time on his hands.

And just like clockwork, he found himself back at Herb’s Electronics, wondering if today would be the day that he would catch Scary. Probably not, seeing as it was past the normal shift change time, and Scary was, if anything, someone who consistently left earlier than expected.

But he hadn’t harassed Kuzy in a while, or the big guy he’d come to learn was Ben, and giving James shit at team parties wasn’t as fun as giving him shit in his place of work. PK had missed pestering his favorite coffee shop and bakery.

So when he pushed open the door to Herb’s, he was thinking up what it was that he wanted to order, even though by now he knew that all Kuzya would make him was a weagle latte.

Kuzya was there, but so was someone PK hadn’t seen there before. Their heads were ducked together, looking at something together on the countertop.

PK froze in his tracks, the bell above the door tinkling merrily, because he knew that person. Before he even heard a voice, he knew that thick dark hair, those broad shoulders, those wide, capable hands.

And then he heard Carey speak, and for the first time in over two years, PK felt like he could finally exhale.

“Carey?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [swedishgoaliemafia on Tumblr.](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/)


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